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.

If that was a social work student I question how they will cope in the field. Some of the things social workers see and deal with daily are genuinely very distressing and not in a ' someone said something I disagree with' way.

”I did wonder though whether his statement was right in the first place”

He wasn’t making any statement over whether it was right or wrong. He was asking people to place themselves on a scale of how confident they would feel in asserting that statement. He could just as well have used the statement “There are at least 200 genders”.

I’m quite sure if you challenged him on the difference between gender and sex, he would happily have a constructive discussion with you.

I’d also suggest that he set the situation up deliberately with a statement he knew would be challenged, outside a building where he knew those inside had a good view from the roof and would challenge him. I suspect there’s nothing accidental in this set up at all.

You can't use that word about this particular ideology here. It gets reported by those who monitor our posts. They're a bit touchy about it.

The question being about "two genders" looks wrong, I initially thought that "two sexes" would have been clearer. But then Peter Boghossian is not at all ignorant of the nuances and I assume he went for "gender" as being much more likely to provoke a reaction, and to encourage the reactors to reveal much more about the views they claim to hold.

To be fair, I don't think she is "lying." Her perception may well be that of many SWs in the US (it seems a rather different set of expectations around LSWs there, depending on the State) and that she's effectively there to adopt a persona of curiosity, listen to people's stories of their experiences and then guide them to re-frame both perceptions and experiences.

The context wasn't what she thought. She seemed to explore and then decline to engage with the context and that attitude seems to be what the students had absorbed.

I hope that this doesn't become an echo chamber of reinforcement for the tutors or students. I think well enough of them for participating that I'd like to think this will be a slowburner. That this situation will come up for them when people imply they're intransigent or inflexible about something or they're categorised on the basis of very little. It might take years but I doubt that's an encounter that will fade from the memory.

If I'd have refreshed the webpage I would have seen that TheCurrywurstPrion got there before me.

I've read his book on this (How to Have Impossible Conversations), so this is fascinating. I think he's been doing this 'street epistemology' for years.

It's impressive to see how he handles the crowd. It's enlightening to see how the people who turned up use narratives they've been taught instead of thinking skills. I think that's not so unusual at university level, especially in the earlier years. You're still developing those skills (hopefully!), your brain is still developing its prefrontal cortex. My first degree was 5 years long and as a 1st year 18 year old it was very much a focus on getting used to uni and learning what I was being taught. As a 23 year old 5th year, there had been a definite shift to 'but why is that true, how do you know, what's the evidence,' etc. etc.

The scary thing watching it for me is that while I'm more persuaded by the position 'we should be freely able to reckon with issues and allowed to think anything through,' I am also very empathetic and can see how people, especially younger women, can be easily persuaded into the 'above all you must not do harm' position (albeit a very narrow view of 'harm'. Some harm seems completely acceptable to these people, including the harm of not having considered all the consequences.)

I recommend the book, btw.

Yes it doesn’t matter what the statement is. It doesn’t use the sort of language that would stray into the loss of his First Amendment protections. He is allowed to offend people and he is allowed to make statements with which they deeply disagree. He even agreed to reframe it as a question, and he quite rightly pointed out that this would be unlikely to satisfy them.

‘I am also very empathetic and can see how people, especially younger women, can be easily persuaded into the 'above all you must not do harm' position (albeit a very narrow view of 'harm'. Some harm seems completely acceptable to these people, including the harm of not having considered all the consequences.)’

Well exactly. Creating an environment in which people feel they can’t question giving thirteen year olds double mastectomies is ‘harm’. Creating an environment of doublethink and intense psychological pressure to conform is ‘harm’. Why doesn’t that harm matter?

I wish Americans would talk about sex. The people critical of gender theory would find it much easier if they separated out sex and gender themselves.

Instead there is a situation where both sides use the word gender to mean different things.

I agree that the young girl (the one with know nothing boomer parents, who actually are unlikely to be boomers given her age, more like Gen X 😂) is fairly close to understanding why gender roles and stereotypes oppress and restrict females as a class.

Then having got so close she's fundamentally misunderstood the need to challenge that from the basis of sex and rejecting the social pressures on women and girls.

Instead she's fleeing from the final conclusion by asserting that any woman who isn't a walking barbie doll or trad wife must not be a woman - they must be something 'other'.

It's so utterly backwards and I think so many of these young women will come to regret buying in to this manipulative framing.

Portland eh?

University of Portland is affiliated with the Congregation of Holy Cross, an order of priests and brothers, guided by the belief of their founder Blessed Basil Moreau, CSC, that "the mind will not be cultivated at the expense of the heart.”

On the evidence available here the mind is not being cultivated at all.

<grumble>Decent forum software tells you there have been new posts so you can check etc. And gives you an edit function for the next 5mins. And images that work…</grumble>

Instead she's fleeing from the final conclusion by asserting that any woman who isn't a walking barbie doll or trad wife must not be a woman - they must be something 'other'.

I have hope for her. She was so near a substantial revelation that it seemed to cause her to back away but I think she'll reflect on that, intentionally or unbidden for some time to come. She may/not change her perspective but she will have thought about it in the round and continue to interrogate her thinking.

That was interesting, apart from the "my parents are sooo old" individual, they were pretty much all claiming to be speaking on behalf of others, so it was all very much from the angle of perceived harm. And even "Mum, you're so old" waffled on but didn't really talk of any hurt or harm.

So is this perceived harm, actually being fuelled by those claiming to be trying to counter it?

He's an impressive man, I have no idea how he kept his face straight 😂

I can't decide if the white man telling them off for being white men or the jaw dropping ageism from the "non binary" was the best bit....

"harm" 🙄

the utter lack of thinking is really depressing

So is this perceived harm, actually being fuelled by those claiming to be trying to counter it?

Colloquially, I'd say that some self-proclaimed friends/allies are people who enjoy stirring, particularly if they can stress what a good friend/ally they are for doing it.

More formally, I've a vague feeling that this is described well by Transactional Analysis where people act as both persecutor and rescuer with an emphasis on the latter.

There's a very specific language around these matters and they could not deviate from it. It was fascinating to watch and listen to. Every word straight from whatever course they're doing "harm" "perspective" "lived identity". They cannot engage in any discussion that doesn't keep to The Script.

Just had a gander at the comments on the YouTube. 100% support Professor Boghossian. Well that's something at least.

That was very interesting, thank you.
(I was wryly amused by the sealioning about street/sidewalk/plaza, because Peter Boghossian just dealt with the topic derail and brought the convo back. We could take tips from that!)

It's very clear to me, from all of this, how easy it is for ideologies to form a grip on people and societies. I used to wonder why people followed fascist regimes, but now I understand.

Here's a video where he goes into more detail about the conversational techniques he uses:

Interesting and lots to learn.

Who would want any of these people as a social worker knowing their initial reaction was to hurl abuse and stick up the finger.

Yes I have to say they are their own worst enemies. Constantly creating issues/ conflicts in order to maintain the victim status so vital for the narrative.

Always wanting more. It wasn't enough that some would be able to get a grc. Then it had to be the right to self decalre. Amd yhe right to be some where you shouldn't. Then came nore identities witg ever increasing demands.Then pro nouns and then pronouns become mainstream on emails and the next thing you know we have neo pronouns and schools having to indulge mew gender. Self identification is spreading to race etc

It will never end. Meanwhile all the people of colour, disabled people , women and girls, those with religions are all forgotten.

The demands keep coming. And people keep going, forever making themselves look like idiots , with their unquestioning compliance. Round amd round In circle's getting more amd more extreme akd ridiculous neither side wanting to be the first to say NO.

One day all those students will be left high and dry unable to work or achieve what they want to achieve because they have spent their lives demolishing anything amd everything set aside to attempt to level the playing field .

They will look up one day and see that the world is once again run by mediocre white men who have cleverly poked the hornets nest ajd legged it. Sat back and watched all these youngsters do their job for them. Let's face it non binary females amd trans men will be subject to the same sexism etc as the rest if us.

I am starting to think though that they will stand their scratching their heads wondering how this happened because the ability to join dots and see the big picture has been socialised and bullied out of them.

And the age. "I'm much younger than you." If he'd wanted to play her at her - sorry their own game - he'd have asked how she/they knew that. Years are just social constructs, he could have some medical condition that makes him look older, he was wrongly assigned 0 at birth, he doesn't identify as old, etc., etc., etc. Just anything to muddy the waters like they do with sex.

It was so childish. “It’s not a street!”

“Sigh, okay little toddler, let’s call it a plaza. Happy?”

I will have to watch his video on conversation techniques so I don’t roll my eyes at the immaturity of people if I come across them in real life like this.

Yes, the it's not a street comment from a crowd who a couple of minutes later protest and 'correct' him for calling a young woman 'she'.