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.

In the 2nd video it was kind of him to obscure their faces.

In the second video the thing I found most depressing was that it was women vehemently arguing for their own oppression.

And Boghossian is 55, he’s not a boomer (not that I like that being thrown around as an insult). He’s Gen X, we grew up in a very different economic reality than Boomers and with a very different mindset.

I was a bit surprised he's the same age as me... I'm older than I thought!

But how offensive to say 'you're old' in that way!

It's the equivalent of shutting people down because they have blue hair, or a tattoo, or are overweight. 'You can't possibly know what you're talking about, your opinion can hold no weight and we don't need to listen to you because...', said in all seriousness!

The three young women who were not blurred out were honestly discussing their differing opinions without hating those who disagree. They were the epitome of rational discourse.

I hope those three rational women were not subjected to any abuse following the video. I hate how 'transphobe' was called out for no reason other than having a valid view on the problem with Males in Women's sport.

What he's doing is simply philosophical enquiry, thinking about what makes a statement true, what could disprove it and why. With such basic things as defining your terms to begin with so everyone can understand what everyone else is talking about. It's not, or shouldn't be, controversial. Even for very strong statements that the near majority would support/reject, because if you are confident in your position (either on the Strongly Agree/Strongly Disagree lines in his set up), you should be able to be very clear what reasoning and evidence has put you there.

I think this is what threw me most, a few years ago when I started becoming interested in this whole area. I took it for granted that adults were capable of doing this and realising that it is necessary for any meaningful communication to be had.

It's pretty unbelievable to me (and a few similarly minded friends who I've talked about it with) that it clearly isn't - it's eye-opening, and I can see how this runs in parallel with conspiracy theorists etc. I had a particularly idiotic conspiracy theorist ex and I had found my instincts to be initially to ask 'ok - what specifically are you claiming? how would you go about assessing whether that was true or not?'
The concept of a fixed truth seems foreign to some of them.

The wole approach goes against everything that is known about emotional resiliance and dealing with trauma.

Yes, there are people for whome some terrible experience, or mental problem, means they cannot function normally in life. They may have to avoid certain things and live a circumscribed life. That is a serious mental health problem in the same way having no immune system that functions is a serious health poblem.

But for the vast majority of people, including people with trauma and mental health issues, avoidance of difficult things makes it worse, and exposure makes it better. I have pretty bad social anxiety. My incination is often to avoid social situations. I know from expereince that it makes everything eose in several ways - the more I avoid, the harder it is to put myself out. The more lonely I get, the worse it gets. By not doing things, I don't meet people and find - or really cultivate - places where I can interact without that kind of stress, so isolation becomes even worse. The only solution is to consistently push myself into situations I find intensely uncomfortable and unenjoyable. Over the years I've learned from exeprience some mental tricks to help, that 99.9% of the time it is actually not as bad as I think or even can be a good experience, and even in the worst case scenario, it doesn't really hurt me in any real way. Being uncomfortable, even seriously with a racing heart etc, is ok. Using my frontal lobe to keep that in mind helps.

These kids are not being told this even though psychology is well aware of it, it's not reflected in modern education at the lower levels or parenting, and they never experience it so they remain terrifies and with no practice or techniques to draw upon to help them.

I'm being treated for PTSD at the moment and the whole thing is working towards mental resilience and turning 'reliving' into 'remembering'. It isn't about shielding myself from triggers or avoiding potentially traumatic experiences or even forgetting the trauma.

Bizarre that they keep pedalling those ideas! They are explicitly ADVERSE to treatment of PTSD.

But to acknowledge that would be to undermine the whole premise.
If it's not necessary to centre such vulnerable individuals at all times, and protect them at all costs, then 🤫 what's the point?

One of my kids was interested in social work when applying to university. What we discovered when looking into it was that the departments all seem to be structured around underlying ideas that give rise to this way of thinking - particularly that the clients they will work with - and I suppose everyone else as well - have no real individual autonomy or responsibility for their situations, and that their cicumstances are created by systemic injustices. The job of the social worker is to help the individuals deal with those system problems and also fight the system directly. And when you look into it a bit more closely, you quickly see the socutions to all the system issues fall within a fairly narrow bandwith of standard progressive political soutions which the students are expected to support.

I suspect for some this ideology is almost protective, because it allows them to in a sense dehumanize the clients while also feeling empathy for them, they don't have to face some of the really ugly things that humans can do straight on.

For those who aren't protected in that way I expect they burn out quickly. A few may reject the whole framework and come up with a better one, I think they are likely the best social workers in the end.

Wow to the sports video. Actually, I found it rather boring that he let blue shirt woman dominate the conversation too much. I realise he’s exposing the extreme intolerance and complete lack of logic, but It’d love to have heard from the women who disagreed more. I would have liked him to ask them whether it was the transness of the athletes that was objectionable, or another factor, for example. I think if they came up with some truly logical counterpoint, it would reveal the paucity of the arguments on the other side even better. And it would have been less boring.

Fascinating though, how angry people get when they are passionately arguing for something they can’t justify.

Interesting also that the transactivists went to the extreme point on the grid, whereas the women who felt women’s rights were important couldn’t bring themselves to go to that extreme. I think I would, but it’s taken a while.

Aren’t we supposed to teach critical thinking skills in schools? Where’s the conversation, the respectful discourse.

Also, ir a sign makes you suicidal then I think there are bigger issues than the subject of the sign.

You're Biblical age!!!

Dear god, the smug pomposity and sheer rudeness of those children. If I were their parent I’d be utterly ashamed. And the tantrumming that they be 'respected'.

I feel I say this every time, but how the hell did we get here?

I was always taught to always treat people how you would like to be treated. Telling someone they are 'biblical age' was not respectful but they were demanding that respect was shown to them. Hypocrisy at it's finest.

Yeah, but asking questions is literal violence, so he has already done much worse than they did. FFS.

It's quite telling, too, that those students felt they had enough confidence to take him on. They must know, that the smallest question has them fuming and incoherent. But they didn't care. They thought they could badger him into compliance.

The fact that he didn't actually say anything non-compliant makes it even worse.

They are completely used to, quite literally, clicking their fingers and getting their way.

So words have to be specific when it's transphobia. They have a real meaning and everyone has to agree.

But words don't have to be specific when it comes to woman or man. And that's transphobic.

Gotcha .

It's eye rollingly inconsistent, all of it.

I'd never heard of Peter Boghossian before this thread but I've been listening to some interviews and lectures from his YouTube channel today which has been quite educational.

The two I thought were most interesting are linked below. The first one is an excellent interview with Andrew Doyle and the second is a presentation (?) by a Dr Asher which explains how the academy (in the US) has become so corrupted.

The concept of idea laundering to manufacture a body of knowledge has been mentioned on threads here from time to time even if those weren't the words used to describe the process.

The second video is quite long and a portion at the end is advice about what action to take to stop the rot, it's US focussed so not as relevant for audiences from other countries but it can be found, broken down into smaller segments on Peters YouTube channel.

Both paint a fairly bleak picture for the future of academia which is obviously bad news for society.

Academia is screwed from what I can see. I would like to think it can come back from this but I see no real sighns that it will happen.

In the US, where a lot of this nonsense started, the Foundation for Individual Right and Expression (FIRE; they recently changed name to cover free speech everywhere and not only in education) have just announced that Georgetown University has become the 87th college to adopt a version of the University of Chicago’s Principles of Free Expression. Very s-l-o-w-l-y, the balance is tipping in favour of defending free speech and away from allowing students' claims of offence and hurt feelings to shut down debates.

That is hopeful, and I'm aware of some other American hopeful things, so I am maybe too pessimistic. Here in Canada it is completely shit, at best you can hope for a place that isn't completely captured and that it also offers the kind of program you want and its ok quality. I am very hesitant at this point to have my kids attend at all, even if the subjects would be best fit for them.

It's interesting that it's the US that has these hopeful elements (though the UK has some too.) I sometimes find American political culture a bit much, there can be so much emphasis on individualism, on the other hand I can see where Canadian politness and disinclination to rock the boat, and maybe too much trust in the authorities, has got us.

I have many thoughts about this video. Its made me want to read Peter Boghossian's book on impossible conversations, for a start.

The whole use of 'triggering' as used by the students I actually find offensive. In the whole history of how we understand PTSD, from the so-called shell-shock that left WW1 soldiers completely broken to the much better understanding and treatments we have today, this is how some people choose to use the term? I mean, the trauma that some people have lived through - war, the holocaust, sexual abuse, I could go on. I'm trying to imagine how Ukrainian people the same age as those students are going to navigate their lives. But this group of people are whinging about a sign that is designed to provoke debate?

When I was at school thirty years ago, we used to have debates about all kinds of contentious issues, and one side would have to be the 'devil's advocate'. It could even be something as preposterous as 'Hitler was right', obviously something that no one in their right mind believes, but the act of debate allows you to explore and understand, and just lets you exercise your mental faculties. Just to bloody think! Ironically, running away from debate, as these students did, is one of the things that facilitates totalitarianism.

It's interesting that young women are screaming at other young women to defend males in women's sports.

I hope they grow out of it but who knows? Women can be pretty shitty to each other and maturity can take a long time. I think it's only in my mid 30s that I started being a better woman to my fellow women. Sorry don't want to be controversial, maybe it's just my experience.

Thanks for sharing these videos. I love Peter Bhogossion and I love how patient and respectful he is, especially knowing he could wipe the floor with pretty much anyone in a debate. The sports video is amazing - it's so incredible to see people literally REFUSING to think. The hypocrisy and nastiness of them bullying the women on the other side was really unpleasant to watch.

I agree 100%. I suspect that when these pampered pets go out into the real world, they’ll have one fit of the vapours, discover that no one’s impressed, then quickly drop the whole ridiculous act.