But, you’ll probably ask,
What the world needs right now is a damn good explainer on bespoke pronouns, and by god the Good Men Project has provided one. How good they must be. The author is named Jane Sofia Struthers.
I just added a signature to my email. It says: “Jane Struthers (pronouns: she/her/hers)”.
But, you’ll probably ask, since that’s exactly what most people would expect, WHY include them? I was going to call you “she” anyway!
There’s a simple answer. Including your pronouns in your email and social media, even if you ARE gender-binary, is a recognition that the gender binary doesn’t apply to everyone. Even if it DOES apply to me (and it does!) there’s no way, simply by looking at me, that you’d know this. (Yes, despite me wearing a lot of pink and “femme” clothes, I could still be non-binary. Contrary to popular opinion, non-binary people don’t HAVE to dress androgynously!)
Oh that silly popular opinion! Imagine thinking that non-binary people have to dress androgynously – you might as well think frogs have to speak rollerskate.
Ok so there’s no way you would know by looking at Struthers that the gender binary DOES apply to her. She says. I bet there is though. I bet there’s the usual stuff, that’s so automatic we don’t think about it. Almost always we just know, because we always have, from infancy. And if you met Struthers and you didn’t know, what good would including your pronouns in your email and social media do? What, you’re going to say to this mysterious person holding out her his their hand on meeting “Excuse me a minute I have to look you up on social media to find out whether the gender binary applies to you or not”?
So that’s not really what it’s for at all. It can’t very well be, because it makes no sense. So what is it for? Silly question. The usual display of rectitude, of course. “Get me I am genderically enlightened and perfected.”
Including your pronouns is one way for gender-binary people to overcome the hurdles that our gender-binary ancestors have nailed into society. Sure, my pronouns are what a layperson expects. But having them there — simply the act of having them — causes the reader to do a double-take. And ask themself, Why did she include this information? Hopefully, they’ll realize that my pronouns might have been anything.
Naw, chum, they’ll realize you’re a posturing condescending fool, and they’ll find someone better to interact with in email and on social media.
Even if the “gender binary” doesn’t apply to her, there’s an overwhelming probability that the sex binary does. And since third person singular pronouns in English are based on sex, not gender (in either the grammatical or the woke sense), you can probably tell which ones apply by looking at her.
What makes pronouns (and other grammatical features of language) so useful is that they pack a lot of easily processed information in small packages. If you have to stop think about them every time you use them, that defeats their purpose.
It defeats the purpose of pronouns but it’s pure joy and exultation for the people who want us to focus all our attention on Magical Them.
Gawd, Ophelia. In two lines I think you nail it. Plus, the sheer, PREENING smugness of this person’s post just radiates, doesn’t it? Ugh.
So many of the people I see declaring their pronouns are like this woman. Non-trans, often people I’ve known for years and never doubted their sex. It’s like they’re saying “Here are my bespoke pronouns that I got off the rack at TJ Maxx.”
If a transperson isn’t doing a good enough job to automatically be referred to, by most sensible people, by the pronouns that they prefer, then it’s up to them to do a better job of deceiving us, not ours. I’ll call y’all whatever I see fit, if I get it wrong it’s on you. Go home and practice, fake it till you make it. Don’t blame us for your imaginary penis and cheesy moustache Chasio, you dipshit.
Still waiting for Kamala to see that the pronouns are misogynistic and ridiculous, but I’m losing hope that she’s as clever as she appears to be, law degree or not, VP or not, an how I sound like a raging conservative extremist about this is fucking dreadful. :P
Which are you going to believe, your lying eyes or the pronouns in her bio?
You must admit, a combination of blue hair/duckface and head tilt does save time.
Even if she wanted, to at this point, she probably can’t afford to. It might “cost you nothing” to include them, but drop them and there’ll be a price to pay. Those who would never vote for her aren’t going to change their minds. Ever. Those who roll their eyes at her use of them will still probably vote for her over a Republican. But those who actually care about this shit would see her failure to continue including her pronouns as some sort of betrayal. She would be denounced as a
heretic and apostatea white feminist, bigot and transphobe and these wounded True Believers would work against her. In some districts, that could be the difference between victory and defeat. So she might have been dumb (or cynical) enough to start using them, but I think she’s smart enough not to stop.Not Bruce @7 I wonder. It doesn’t seem to be a particularly polarized issue, so the amount of voters Kamala gains by using the pronouns vs. the amount of voters she loses by not using them is hard to determine, but I would think the difference is negligible. All I can assume is that she either believes the trans cult nonsense, or is ignorant of the deeper ramifications of indulging their compelled speech. Either way it makes her look less intelligent and informed than she probably is. But I agree, if she stops using them now it might cause an uproar for those who insist on their use. But what I wonder is why she used them in the first place, or gave the green light for those who used them on her behalf. It’s not simply virtue signaling, because if she had never used them I’m pretty sure it would have made no difference. Anyway, it’s disheartening to see someone who is so seemingly competent and capable, either be giving in to the wokester trans mob, or ignorant of the implications of their agenda.
I didn’t vote for her in the primaries particularly because of this, and if it came down to her and someone who was on the more reasonable side of this issue in a straight up election, whatever the party, it would influence my vote.
I call this the agnostics-gambit. When god is the subjects, agnostics start using the words “know” and “knowledge” in a very strict sense that implies we can’t know anything, because however high the probabilities there is always a chance to be mistaken. They do this to divert attention of the fact that should we use the same standard of evidence to the idea of god as we do to other mythical concepts, we would come to the conclusion that gods don’t exist.
It seems the transcult has found the same trick useful.
Axxyaan #9
Another common feature of agnosticism (of the “strong” kind) and gender apologetics is the reliance of “bad puns” to make non sequiturs seem logically sound, e.g.:
• In the absence of absolute certainty regarding God’s* existence the only intellectually defensible position is to be an agnostic₁ (defined as anyone who doesn’t claim to know for sure whether or not there’s a God) rather than an atheist.
• But being an agnostic₂ implies absolute uncertainty regarding God’s existence.
• Therefore, in the absence of absolute certainty regarding God’s existence the only intellectually defensible position is absolute uncertainty.**
• Feminsim is a movement that fights for the equality of women₁ (defined as people with a strong preponderance of innate physical traits more representative of mothers than fathers)
• Anyone who thinks/feels in ways x,y,z (best left unspecified) is a woman₂
• Therefore Feminism is a movement that fights for the equality of anyone who thinks/feels in ways x,y,z
• Misogyny is hostility or disrespect towards women₁
• Anyone who thinks/feels in ways x,y,z is a woman₂
• Therefore misogyny is hostility or disrespect towards anyone who thinks/feels in ways x,y,z
• Straight men₁ and lesbian women₁ are attracted to women₁
• Anyone who thinks/feels in ways x,y,z is a woman₂
• Therefore straight men₁ and lesbian women₁ are attracted to anyone who thinks/feels in ways x,y,z
• This bathroom/sporting event/domestic abuse shelter/jail etc. is reserved for women₁
• Anyone who thinks/feels in ways x,y,z is a woman₂
• Therefore this bathroom/sporting event/domestic abuse shelter/jail etc. is reserved for anyone who thinks/feels in ways x,y,z
Etc.. etc…
* Assuming for the sake of the argument that believers could provide a definition of “God” that were unambiguous and specific enough to turn a sentence like “God exists” into a meaningful statement.
** So, if I really am as certain as one can reasonably be about anything that no supernatural intelligence was involved in the origin of life and/or the universe, but admit for the sake of intellectual honesty that this doesn’t technically qualify as “knowledge” (the same way I don’t “know” that there isn’t such a thing as the Midgard Serpent, or that there is such a thing as external reality), what am I allowed to call myself?
*Shoots arrow at tortoise, hits it, drops bow*
As far as I’m concerned, use whatever label you are comfortable with, so long as you make it clear what you think.
I’m uncomfortable with the Dawkins-esque “There’s almost certainly no God”. There are lots of things about which I have no problems expressing certainty, such as “There is no ocean containing a blue whale in my refrigerator”, and I am always open to new evidence about anything. I feel the same way about gods: their likelihood seems to me no better than the whale+ocean scenario, so I have no problems saying “I am certain there are no gods”. I am open to evidence. Expressing less than certainty feels like catering to the fragile feelings of the religious believers, and I don’t need to do that, any more than I need to cater to the whale+ocean contingent.
So I call myself an atheist, I express certainty about things, and I remain always open to re-evaluating my position on ANYTHING in the face of new evidence. Do what works for you.
@Sackbut,
Yous discussion regarding atheism is more elegant than mine
http://farcornercafe.blogspot.com/2021/04/cosomological-argument.html
A good statement of exactly how I feel, but I do understand where Dawkins is coming from, and I don’t think it has anything to do with catering to the fragile feelings of religious believers. I saw an interview where he said what he had always said, and gave a probability with so many zeros before the one you might as well call it certainty, and people jumped on that as though Dawkins was admitting uncertainty. He doesn’t really have any, given that probability (though I thought it a mistake to give such a precise, albeit astronomically improbable, probability on something that we can’t calculate a precise probability for). But as a scientist, he will not say he is certain. I think if you put him in the same corner on evolution, he would admit to a trifle (again, astronomically small) probability that it is not a valid theory. He’s being consistent.
I hold the same level of certainty as Sackbut, but I have found that believers will derail the argument in that direction if given a chance. If you admit the tiniest amount of uncertainty, they will jump all over that. Either you have a dogmatic certainty (so religion) or you know you are wrong. There can be no intermediate ground. They have you in a no-win situation. Sometimes the best thing to do is shrug, roll your eyes, and change the subject.
The trans lobby is playing the same game. They want to make it a no-win situation for GC feminists, and so far they’ve succeeded. Here the shrug, roll your eyes, and change the subject is inherently dangerous to women’s rights.
iknklast:
Yeah, I think that’s it (re Dawkins). He was being careful not to come across as dogmatic; to show that he would change his mind if clear evidence of a god emerged. He felt – perhaps rightly – that it was an important message for a scientist in the public eye to convey.
As an ex-scientist who was never in the public eye, I’m not so sure. I’ve never quite been able to figure out what god-shaped evidence would or could look like.
Sackbut #12, iknklast #14, latsot #15
Sean Carroll has often made the point that we should never set our Bayesian priors equal to zero, since that amounts to saying that no amount of evidence is ever going to change your mind. And of course when you put it like that, it seems silly to even suggest that there’s any other way of looking at it. But there’s a flipside to that coin: Saying that there is nothing evidence can not convince you of seems equivalent to saying that there is no sensory experience you could possibly have that would make you stop trusting your sensory experiences, in other words: “It is more likely that the laws of physics are wrong/have been violated than that I am imagining things, or hallucinating, or insane, or dreaming, or that it’s all in my mind etc. etc.” That doesn’t seem obviously less dogmatic or closed-minded to me.
So you have taken the red pill, you wake up in the liquid container with wires sticking out of you, you’re flushed down the drain, see the hovercraft appearing above you, the claw descends and lifts you inside, and Morpheus looks down at you and says “welcome to the real world”. How do you know this world is any more real than the one you just left behind? If your sensory experience could be that wrong once, why should you trust it to to tell you the truth about anything. This is very similar to the reservations I have about stating categorically that I could be persuaded to believe in God with enough evidence. I’m more inclined to say that I could be persuaded that both my senses and my logical abilities were useless for gaining reliable knowledge about external reality (if there is such a thing).
I think what I said is less a question of formal probability than one of language.
I refuse to jettison the use of “certain” simply because it’s not exactly correct. I use it casually all the time. I don’t want to couch statements as “almost certain” to appease feelings, even though there are other statements I feel equally strongly about where I’d use “certain” and nobody would care. The “almost” might be broadly accurate, but in practice it’s like a filler word, like “maybe” or “kind of” or “very” or “just”, often added unnecessarily.
I’m always open to evidence; I don’t have to acknowledge that in every sentence I write. I am not less certain about the lack of gods than I am about many things for which the use of “certain” would go unremarked, and I wish to treat both of those cases the same way.
Hmm. I have a tendency to twitch just slightly when people use “certain” that way, not least because there’s always “sure” instead. “Sure” is less absolute than “certain” so why use “certain” about things you can’t be certain about? (That’s a general [rhetorical] question as opposed to one just for you, Sackbut.) Another better alternative is “convinced.” It’s true that it is kind of colloquial to say “I’m certain” when one means “sure” or “convinced,” but I think that tends to muddle things.
I don’t think I make fine distinctions between “certain”, “sure”, and “convinced”. Except perhaps that “certain” is more emphatic. Interesting point.
I like this point a lot. I share your reservations. I don’t think the concept of a god is coherent or well-defined, and evidence I can imagine presented would lead me to question my ability to learn about the world through senses and reasoning, rather than conclude there is a god.
Well, I’m maniacal about fine distinctions, but then again I think anyone who likes to converse here must have some interest in epistemology, or why like to converse here in the first place? It can’t be just the swearing, because you can get that in a lot of places.
Or to put it another way I don’t really think it is a fine distinction. I think “certain” is almost always claiming too much. It’s wise to avoid claiming too much, lest you find yourself having to defend the claim.
I seem to have left the wrong impression.
I like to think that I, too, am maniacal about fine distinctions, and I care very much about epistemology. I am far from your knowledge and skill level, but I do care about such things.
My previous comment was not intended to say that I refuse to consider fine distinctions between these words, only that I don’t think I make them often in my usual speech and writing. Your point about the distinctions was interesting to me, and will make me think about the issue some more, because, again, I do care about these things. I don’t assert that I’ll agree, but I might.
I gather from your description that you are not likely to use the word “certain” very much at all, because it implies so much. Fair enough. I don’t have any compunction against saying “I am certain there is no whale in my refrigerator”, but perhaps I should say “sure”. Again, I’ll have to think about the points you’ve made.
I agree that most people who use the lack of absolute certainty to argue that we should all be “agnostics” rather than “atheists”* are not simply being philosophically rigorous. In my experience they usually mean agnostic about God in particular as opposed to all this other stuff that we know for sure. And once you have conceded that we can’t technically “know”, and that we should all be “agnostics”, it usually doesn’t take long before “not claiming metaphysical certitude” has mutated into the idea that no position on the matter is any more or less reasonable, or justified, or likely to be accurate than any other, and that “there might as well be a God for all we know”.
Quite frankly, I hardly ever mention either “atheism” or “agnosticism” these days. As far as I’m concerned, such labels are just convenient short-hands for “I think suchandsuch” anyway. If I can just tell you my “suchandsuch” in less than 60 seconds whereas all eternity is not enough to clear up all the (often willful) misconceptions surrounding the words “atheism” and “agnosticism”, they both cease to be convenient short-hands, and it’s both quicker and more accurate to just tell you what I think: That words like “atheism” and “agnosticism” are just different words for refusing to add something more to our picture of reality as painted by science without a minimum of justification, that any such addition to my ontology has to earn its place, or Occam’s Razor takes care of it. And so far no religious or supernatural claim has even come close. In fact, they all have exactly the properties** that I for one would expect from people who don’t have any reason what so ever to belive as they do, but are absolutely determined to believe it anyway and justify it to themselves somehow.
*And of course the idea that one has to be either one or the other only makes sense if one takes “atheism” to imply absolute metaphysical certitude. By that standard I don’t know any “atheists”.
**Follow geographical and cultural lines, taught in childhood and surviving into adulthood through communal reinforcement, familiarity and old habit (“I believe it today because I believed it yesterday”), tons of circular reasoning and special pleading, the idea that blind faith is a virtue and doubt (or doing anything to find out it the religion is true) is a sin, etc… etc…
Hm. I’d say without reservation that I’m certain that there’s no god. I have absolutely no doubt about the matter whatsoever. The fact that I’d change my mind if there were enough evidence for me to do so doesn’t reduce my certainty (well, by definition: if I’m certain there’s no god then I’m certain no evidence of god exists). I’m not certain that no such evidence could exist in practice (perhaps even in principle) but I’m…. let’s say convinced of it.
Having said that, I’m now paranoid that I use “certain” too much. But not here. I’m sticking with “certain” for no gods.
To repeat what I said above, I’m as certain as one can reasonably be about anything that there is no such thing as a God*. Technically this might not qualify as “knowledge”, but neither does anything else outside of pure mathematics or formal logic. I’m not more certain of anything else
Back in the days of the late atheist movement I remember taking part in the so-called “blasphemy challenge” where people would post content blasphemous of the Holy Spirit online (described by Jesus in the gospels as an unforgivable sin leading to certain damnation). Of course many believers – whether believers in God or believers “in belief” in Daniel Dennett’s terminology – mistook the point as being offensive simply for the sake of being offensive, when, in fact, it was about turning Pascal’s Wager on its head: If there were any serious reasons to think Christianity were on the right track, blaspheming against the Holy Spirit would be a very dangerous thing to do indeed, so the real point being made by these posts was “I’m so confident that Christianity is bullshit that I’m prepared to bet my soul on it, and it doesn’t worry me at all“.
Of course this doesn’t cover all the other possible gods, but even if there were some kind of blasphemy that were guaranteed to get me damned if any god of any kind were to exist, I would not be any more afraid of that than I am of uttering Voldemort’s name.
*I do make a distinction between the God of fundamentalists and the “God” of philosophically sophisticated believers though: At least the fundamentalists give you something to argue meaningfully for or against, while the bad puns and deepities of the philosophically sophisticated ones fall in the “not even wrong” category.