Peter Boghossian

[TheCurrywurstPrion]

I found this fascinating video on Twitter. Philosopher Peter Boghossian was carrying out a thought experiment around the statement “There are only two genders” in the street outside the social work department of Portland University.

A group of people come out to challenge him. Watch what happens when it comes to the point that they cannot challenge him further and realise to continue means they will actually have to engage.

I was a post doc at PSU for a few years about 20 years ago. It was a fab place to live and work then. I wouldn't go back now if they'd offered me double my current salary.
I liked that he was asking them at the end what they thought people who watch this video will take from it.

I know what I take from it: they can’t defend their propositions and as a consequence they are forced to substitute emotional arguments for epistemological ones.

Good grief.

Outside of the script there's nothing.

I also find the level.of self sacrifice disturbing. Not one of them felt able to remotely think about themselves. What they want..how they feel. That's a very self destructive way to live. Not saying we should never think of others but they appeared to not allow themselves a second to discuss impacts on them and their well being.

Good clip. I admire how he was able to control the situation without slurs and insults and showed them up for their lack of engagement in discussion when the tables turned!

Wow, he's a patient, logical man putting up with a patronising, hysterical crowd wanting to 'educate' him due to his 'generation' and asking if they have a trauma informed support person on hand because he wants to debate the statement as to whether they are 2 genders.

A very clear thought experiment right there. So interesting that the mob were so far up their own arses that they didn't get it. Pot and kettle...

Its all such a race to the bottom.isnt it. How quickly it goes from being triggered to suicide based on a few words on a sign that everyone had thr option of walking past and ignoring.

How realistic is this protective little bubble they are attempting to create and sacrificing their own credibility to do so

They got caught in their own lies didn’t they? “We came to understand.” No you didn’t, you came to shut it down and you’re having to back track because you came across someone who wanted a respectful discussion instead of the bunfight you were hoping for. Not to mention the ageism from the “non-binary” person 🙄.

Seeing someone stand on a university campus and say a university is a place where people learn ‘how to take care of each other’ and is therefore not the place for a thought experiment was rather interesting.

It was also interesting how they thought they had the right to say anything (including using profanity towards another person) but for some reason the other person had to justify themselves, listen and be educated. But they didn’t have to listen or justify themselves.

If you took some of the other thought experiment questions he mentioned (like the one about Ukraine) would they be allowed or not depending on the level of harm they might consider to a passer by?

at what point does it become unacceptable to discuss something in case it causes trauma?

would asking about state financial support be ok even if it was triggering to a person who has lived in poverty? Or would a trauma informed support person be needed? Because I feel there’s going to be a lot of philosophical and social questions are going to be off the table if that’s the case.

Is it ok to assume the gender and race of people (as occurred there by the social studies students) just because you disagree with what they are saying?

How sad that a generation has given in to gender stereotypes, and clearly have no understanding of how rigid these boxes are that they’re willingly putting themselves, and others, into.
How terrifying that so many are enabling this bonkers ideology.
Are things improving at all or are we screwed?

No one living through the war or in poverty is being offered support/counselling etc

But priveleged people at a university who have the money ir backing to achieve all this are some how in need if said support for hearing or reading something.

Such privileged bull shit

That was such an own goal I cannot believe it was not scripted. I will go and see what others he posed the question to thought.

Not one of those people asked who he was and what he meant by his statement of being a ‘gender scholar’.

I think a better thought experiment is “all the 60+/several hundred genders are actually personalities”. Because ultimately everyone is non-binary to some degree and instead this would ensure people defend what makes things like “aerogender” valid.

The problem is their whole logic is ‘But these are real people’, and therefore you can’t discuss the topic of identity, but actually half of academia (anthropology, sociology, gender studies, economics, religious studies, psychiatry, psychology) necessitates the discussion of real people, and their identities.

They don’t in any case want to prevent the discussion of people or identity; they just want to dominate it.

it’s sounded to me that the woman defending the non binary person also refers to them as “she”when defending them. Exactly what the man is accused of. He didn’t notice though which is a shame.

It’s true that gender is socially constructed and it’s true that (therefore) there might be as many genders as society can construct.

But I don’t use ‘she’ to refer to gender. I use it to refer to sex. Of those, there are two.

"I don't fit in the box of just a cis woman" says the non-binary they/them, patronisingly explaining to someone twice her age how lots of people don't fit into gender stereotypes - as if people of our generation aren't aware of that, and it isn't one of the many reasons for concluding that gender ideology is a pile of horseshit.

Oh god, these kids' heads are so messed up. This is where the pink and blue toyshop aisles from the 2000s leads you.

It was also interesting how they thought they had the right to say anything (including using profanity towards another person) but for some reason the other person had to justify themselves, listen and be educated. But they didn’t have to listen or justify themselves.

It was fascinating how quickly they all ran away as soon as they were asked whether they understood what they were objecting to.

The woman who arrives first is lying right from the start. She claims she is curious about what’s happening, but she isn’t remotely curious. She wants to shut it down.

I like his style of goading no debaters into debate

‘She claims she is curious about what’s happening, but she isn’t remotely curious.’

Not even a little bit.