Interesting.
He’s an academic himself – a historian – so he’s in one of those other fields.
I do have a theory for why it's such a thing in the UK–it's bc the US is more religious so it's easier for Americans to buy into the problematic-but-perhaps-useful-first-step narrative of "trans = X soul in Y body" (note popularity of transphobia among British "sceptics")
— Bill Black (@williamrblack) June 18, 2019
By “transphobia” he of course means just not buying all the wack truth claims, and his theory for why there is less skepticism about the wack truth claims in the US is the fact that we buy other wack truth claims more easily so we also buy the truth claims of trans dogma more easily. That’s quite an admission for a transdogmaphile.
He ended up with this bit of wisdom:
I'm not saying philosophers are uniquely transphobic–I'm guessing philosophy gives folks a language they can use to make transphobia sound reasonable, in a way that history etc don't
— Bill Black (@williamrblack) June 18, 2019
Or to put it another way, philosophers are trained to analyze truth claims to see how well they stand up, so they’ve become well familiar with how quickly and thoroughly the truth claims of trans dogma go splat.
But that’s transphobia, so it must be bullied out of existence.
Comments
12 responses to “Problematic but perhaps useful”
Yes, but historians are also trained to do at least some of that – not as the whole basis of their field, but because they need to be able to sort through nonsense claims about history. This is why few historians buy into David Irving. It may be more vocal because Philosophy has developed a stronger language for that, and because the trans claims haven’t bubbled into history yet; their historical claims aren’t as robustly shouted as their philosophical claims, and I suspect history is just not noticing them that much yet, or don’t see them as particularly threatening or relevant to history. Once they start more vocally coopting ever single woman who ever put on man’s clothes to be able to do what she wanted, we may see more vocal opposition from history. It’ll be interesting to see if that happens.
Oh, indeed they are. Richard Evans’s book on the Irving trial is a fascinating read on the subject. Most academic fields have to analyze truth claims of one kind or another…literature being an exception, which is one reason its status as an academic field has always been subject to everything from question to mockery to disdain.
“I don’t understand what it is about medical schools that makes them such hotbeds of homeopathyphobia. We just don’t see that kind of thing here in the Department of Russian Literature.”
Hahahaha bingo.
And the specific ‘problematic but perhaps useful’ entry to trans nonsense: dualism. And he admitted it in plain language, which is nice of him.
Also:
They have, in a small way – retrospectively claiming historical figures as trans, probably starting with Joan d’Arc.
Yes, Holms, and George Eliot. And George Sand. And several others. But it hasn’t had a big impact on history at this point, so they can just ignore it.
Holms; iknklast. I’m surprised they’re not yet claiming that God making Eve from Adam’s rib was an an allegorical story about Adam being trans.
AoS, now you’ve done it. I give it a month.
@8 and 9, except that shouldn’t Adam have been made from Eve then?
#8 AoS:
Proof positive that Adam was a trans man, so Eve was a trans woman, so the Bible isn’t transphobic and neither is God.
tiggerthewing, you’ve got a real future as a Christian modernizer and in biblical exegesis. I suggest you offer your services to the god-believing Unitarians. Most the ones I know would love that.