To paraphrase Stewart Lee a little I'm baffled by this. When my Dad was at school (post-war) the first black boy in his class was called by everyone, including the teacher, "blackie Mills". Not his actual first name but "blackie". When I grew up in London in the 70's and 80's I would go to the "paki" shop to get bread and milk. Nig-nog, wog, coon and darkie were fairly common words. Any boy that was effeminate in any way was a poof, bender or shirtlifter. Being considered gay was almost the worst thing you could be. Jim Davidson and Bernard Manning were mainstream performers. The black and white minstrel show was considered wholesome family entertainment. Many other depictions of racial minorities were generally comedy stereotypes played by white people. Maybe I had a particularly racist family? Honestly I don't think I did. At least no more racist than the general background level of racism at the time. Today none of those things are the case and political correctness is part and parcel of that. When someone says they dislike or are against political correctness that's the kind of world I think they would like to return to. And it baffles me because, compared to what we have now, where sometimes political correctness can be a bit of a blunt or clumsy tool, that was a horrible world for some people. In terms of "identity politics" I don't even really know what that means. It's become the buzz-word people rail against in the last year or so. What I do know is that as a heterosexual, white, not-yet-disabled man in Britain who's outward appearance and behaviour matches my internal feelings there is no facet of my "identity" that has ever been marginalised, threatened, diminished, criminalised or ridiculed to any degree. Either institutionally, culturally or societaly. There are no words that have been used to threaten me that have any power or meaning whatsoever. It would be very easy for me to dismiss "identity politics" because my identity is not at stake. However if other people (that aren't me and live different lives to me) feel they need to assert or protect their "identity" then the whole idea of political correctness means I should probably listen to those people. They are given a voice even though they may be in a minority or going against the status quo. And by doing so I lose nothing. I'm still me. I don't have to give anything away just to listen.
I believe it is a mistake to judge Peterson on the most vocal of his acolytes, just as it is a mistake to judge campaigning for social justice by the most intolerant and ignorant of those who do it. There are babies on both sides. I find Peterson rather childish in his propensity to throw a tantrum, except when he does it he's being a strong, dominant male, but when a woman does she's a crazed harpy and he's not even allowed to punch her in the face. His own arguments are enough to undo him as a person worth listening to. A small amount of what he says has value, but that is utterly tarnished by the paranoid barminess he continually spouts. He is also a dangerous person, especially in the way he sells himself as the arbiter of scientific discovery. For instance, his assertion that the biological basis for (Western) traditional gender roles has been settled by way of questionnaire is absurd, yet toxic MRA types are loving these ideas that are finally coming into the mainstream. He makes similar claims for race. We don't need to find the genes, psychometric testing can tell us all we need to know. If some people find comfort in his self-help schtick, then good for them. The trouble is though, self-help gurus tend to foster adulation, which we can definitely see in some of Peterson's fans, and adulation hampers critical thinking, which allows Peterson's McCarthyism and reactionary conservatism to take seed unquestioned. Like Peterson said about Hitler; sometimes listening to someone's stated aims does not reveal their true motivations. Sometimes it is more instructive to look at the outcomes of their actions: We now know that the Canadian Bar Association was not lying when it said Peterson had misrepresented bill C-16. His Martin Luther moment was entirely his own stage-managed creation. We don't know if he did that because he doesn't believe that gender expression should be a human right, or if he knew that his free speech act would be just the right dog whistle to build a following. He's still trying to wring out the last bit of juice from C-16 with the legal action being taken by himself and Lindsay Shepherd. He eventually gave up on his McCarthy-esque university blacklist, once his tenure was in jeopardy, but the hypocrisy of an anti-PC, anti-SJW pundit who warns of creeping totalitarianism setting up a blacklist in order to purge the education system of "dangerous ideas" is astounding. He wrote a self-help book based on the Bible and erroneous interpretations of biology. So, from this we can surmise that he never wanted to stop bill C-16, and he never really wanted to purge universities of their humanities departments, he just wanted to cause irritation and mayhem and make a ton of money from people who delight in irritation and mayhem suffered by those who would redress the balance of privilege in society.
The term identity politics generally involves people using uncontrollable external factors about themselves, or made up things they identity as, to justify their opinions and refute yours to avoid any sort of real discussion. "I'm a latinx lesbian, you're a white cis male, therefore I know more about a given subject than you even if that subject has nothing to do with the latinx lesbian community." There are some really off the wall things out there like, "the scientific method was made by white men, so we need to stop using it." We're all very aware of the "if it ain't white it ain't right!" people, and we know that's going WAY too far with identity politics, but when is it going too far coming from the other way? I don't have a problem with people identifying as a certain thing. I have a problem with people using that identity as being 100% the reason for their woes. Are there things surrounding identity that still need to be addressed? Certainly. That's simply not the entire equation, and we've definitely progressed in society in such a way that it's become less a factor in many, many areas and it's measurable. Doubling down on rhetoric that makes society seem like it's a white supremacist nazi germany patriarchy isn't helping a damn thing, and it's demonizing (in america) the majority population. Demonizing the majority population creates a lot of different problems as well. I'm pretty confident in saying that's how you get a Trump and a Brexit.
I'm all for political correctness. I think calling people what they want to be called should be respected to the point where neither party is asking for anything radical. I'm not for calling people by their preferred pronouns for anything outside "he/she/his/hers/there/theirs" it just seems excessive. I'm also against people assigning genders to children other than their birth gender. I'm also against people compartmentalising sexual preference and giving it a name. For instance "demisexual: A demisexual is a person who does not experience sexual attraction unless they form a emotional connection. It's more commonly seen in, but by no means confined, to romantic relationships. The term demisexualcomes from the orientation being "halfway between" sexual and asexual." That's just sexual preference, why do you feel the need to label it and then identify as it? It totally undermines the few people who are actually asexual.
1) I agree, in my day it's was just called politeness, I'm glad being polite is so prevalent. 2) being born intersex etc happens in upto 1.7% of live births, so I can see the need to be able to delay it, hormone treatment in puberty and also for sex change operations etc with an involved medical and psychological team. There's a big campaign at the moment for people to change gender legally, to match what they self identify as, which is incredibly dumb and open to abuse, in my own opinion. Sex assignment - Wikipedia
It's not the same. asexual is zero sexual attraction. Hetro, homo and bisexuality are all attracted to one or two. Totally fine with that. You can't be between 0 and 1. You are either attracted to people or you aren't. Beyond that is just personal preference and has no need to be labelled.
I dunno man, seems like you're trying to place your categorical assumptions on the world at large. I could just as easily say that you're either attracted to the same sex, or different sexes, and anything in between is just a personal preference with no need to be labeled. There's an infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1.
I'd not seen that term before, but you know what? As soon as I read that, I thought "oh, yeah, I've known people like that". Some people just don't have any attraction to strangers, and don't find bodies in-and-of themselves attractive in the same way as most people. It's totally a thing, and I wouldn't begrudge people a label. What difference does it make to asexual people? How does giving that a name undermine anyone else?
I know people like that too! Why does it need to be labelled? pansexual (gender-blind sexual attraction to all people) omnisexual (similar to pansexual, but actively attracted to all genders, rather than gender-blind) gynosexual (someone who’s sexually attracted to women—this doesn’t specify the subject’s own gender, as both “lesbian” and “heterosexual” do) demisexual (sexually attracted to someone based on a strong emotional connection) sapiosexual (sexually attracted to intelligence) objectumsexual (sexual attraction to inanimate objects) autosexual (someone who prefers masturbation to sexual activity with others) androgynosexual (sexual attraction to both men and women with an androgynous appearance) androsexual (sexual attraction towards men) asexual (someone who doesn’t experience sexual attraction) graysexual (occasionally experiencing sexual attraction, but usually not) Why do we need these labels?
androgynosexual (sexual attraction to both men and women with an androgynous appearance) "Listen, I've swiped right because you look like I can't tell what gender you are and that attracts me to you". "Hi, I'm objectumsexual! Would you be interested in a threesomes with me and my wardrobe? We're in a committed relation ship but looking to experiment."
Well, I don't need those labels. I don't get why I should be upset about people who feel like those labels are important to them though.
I don't mind people labelling themselves any of that as ridiculous as it is. It goes back full circle when you see people referring to themselves as "gender fluid" and demanding that people call them by their correct pronouns. I don't want to be forced to call someone David one day and Devina the next depending on that persons mood.
Just for sake of argument Pink, how is that any different than the typical rejection of transgender identities?
It's because there's no Scottish women, just men in tartan skirts, the scotch (get quite touchy about it........ (I'm joking, I'm scotch myself, well my father was a scotch, and as we know it's passed down the paternal line, just like Huntingtons....) ;] Ps with apologies to stewert Lee.
Your right, I could of sworn it was sex dependent, I guess not. Edit, got it, I misremembered hunter syndrome!
