Glosswitch's response to Rebecca Solnit's stupid Guardian article

[RoyalCorgi]

She puts it very well, as always.

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/the-strategic-ignorance-award

I agree with that analysis Goosefoot.

I doubt deep down she believes it in every case because it is preposterous, but it's just such an American (and British ofc but there are more dissenters on the left here) leftist credo that she never questions it, and never gets past it. That's why you can't reason with these people. You can't convince them to change their mind with facts, because it's not a sincere belief that they could be persuaded by evidence to change, and they don't really care about any negative ramifications. What they are concerned about is being seen to maintain their position.

Occasionally you do get through to one of these people that all is not ok, and in my experience they often will blame you personally for that, if you put doubt in their mind or their sense of fairness or conscience bothers them. Because that way leads to being ostracised and possibly punished by your woke peers. And they are all scared of that, having seen what's happened to others.

That's why you can't reason with these people. You can't convince them to change their mind with facts, because it's not a sincere belief that they could be persuaded by evidence to change, and they don't really care about any negative ramifications.

It's very akin to a religious faith position. Ever tried arguing with a religious person? You can argue till you're blue in the face that transubstantiation is nonsensical, or that Jesus couldn't have risen from the dead or whatever, but you won't get anywhere because religious faith isn't susceptible to reason. Trans faith is exactly like that.

I think it's interesting that you say it's not sincerely held. Does Rebecca Solnit sincerely believe that trans women are women? My guess is she refuses to think about it. In that sense it's sincerely held because she is trying very hard not to think through the argument logically because then she might turn into one of those nasty TERFs. "Strategic ignorance" is a very good term for it

@RoyalCorgi

That's why you can't reason with these people. You can't convince them to change their mind with facts, because it's not a sincere belief that they could be persuaded by evidence to change, and they don't really care about any negative ramifications.

It's very akin to a religious faith position. Ever tried arguing with a religious person? You can argue till you're blue in the face that transubstantiation is nonsensical, or that Jesus couldn't have risen from the dead or whatever, but you won't get anywhere because religious faith isn't susceptible to reason. Trans faith is exactly like that.

I think it's interesting that you say it's not sincerely held. Does Rebecca Solnit sincerely believe that trans women are women? My guess is she refuses to think about it. In that sense it's sincerely held because she is trying very hard not to think through the argument logically because then she might turn into one of those nasty TERFs. "Strategic ignorance" is a very good term for it

Well, I don't know. Certainly the kind of person you are decriing exists, though I don't find it's confined to religious people - a lot of people hold their basic worldview at that level. Having spent several years at university reading ancient and medieval philosophy, I would say much of their metaphysics it is far more completely and logically laid out and justified than even many modern philosophers who simply don't believe a metaphysics is possible. Even reasonably educated laypersons in some religious traditions can be found without too much difficulty who have some understanding of those foundations of their belief.

Although they are rarer than they used to be - you find them less often now among some groups that used to have quite a respectable intellectual tradition - though I think that's true of more secular people now as well. I tend to think it comes out of the same problems in education that lead people to these weird moral orthodoxies that are without much foundation that they can discuss.

Meghan Murphy has also written a good piece about it for Feminist Current:

www.feministcurrent.com/2020/08/17/what-happens-when-women-give-up/

I think it's interesting that you say it's not sincerely held. Does Rebecca Solnit sincerely believe that trans women are women? My guess is she refuses to think about it. In that sense it's sincerely held because she is trying very hard not to think through the argument logically because then she might turn into one of those nasty TERFs. "Strategic ignorance" is a very good term for it

Yes that's exactly what I think. If it was a sincere belief I think she'd want to understand why people who agree with her on other things don't believe it. I think very very few people actually do believe it, in the sense that whatever pomo definition they go with they do know full well MTF trans people are different to women and who they can smear, silence, ignore and push around.

I think there are people who believe it. Some of them have accepted the idea that being a man or woman is about gender rather than sex, and they are entirely separate things.

Another group, which Solnit seems to fall into, has bought into the claim that we now know more about biological sex and there are people who do not fall into clear categories the way we used to believe. That is, they believe in some biological basis that makes trans-men or trans-women fall into that category.

I don't think it's that simple. Their actions bely that they see women and MTFs as the same. They may have performed mental gymnastics in their brain to redefine sex and gender, but they know the difference perfectly well when it matters, as I said.

To add to Eresh's point - their actions demonstrating they know very well who's in which category is clear evidence that gendered socialisation is based on phenotype, not chromosomes.

Ah San Francisco, which has such a huge homelessness problem that people are pooing in the streets. Such progressiveness. Wow. I can see why Solnit is so proud.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/18/san-francisco-poop-problem-inequality-homelessness

If it was a sincere belief I think she'd want to understand why people who agree with her on other things don't believe it.

God yes. An unwillingness to listen and understand where someone is coming from, speaks of a fear that you will be persuaded by their argument and it is absolutely essential that you don't agree with them.

I have no problem listening to the arguments of someone whose ideas I don't agree with. I'm confident that either their arguments won't convince me, or that if they do, it's because they're right.

@StrangeLookingParasite

Then she was a, to me surprising, disappointment after the Charlie Hebdo terrorism.

What did she say about Charlie Hebdo? (I tried googling, but perhaps I'm doing it badly).

If I remember right (I think I do) she was one of the people being super-woke pro-Palestinian can't-say-a-word-against-Islamist-terrorists because Charlie Hebdo sometimes published tasteless cartoons. Or something like that. She was, I think, one of the signatories or boycotters of the PEN meeting in 2015 when they were going to honor the Charlie Hebdo writers. I've also tried to search for the details, but also got nowhere.

Oops. I see Royal Corgi has a better memory than mine and answered the question, with link.

I have no problem listening to the arguments of someone whose ideas I don't agree with. I'm confident that either their arguments won't convince me, or that if they do, it's because they're right.

Yes, me too.