Philosophy group

[AnnaMagnani]

DH attends a philosophy reading group, based at an eminent university.

Over the years I have quietly radicalized him and he is now more GC than I am.

He's just had the programme for this term and it's feminism as done by Judith Butler

I honestly don't know how he's going to cope. I've suggested he has Julie Bindel and the complete works of JK Rowling on the bookshelf behind him.

If he’s very GC that could be really interesting for him. As a student of philosophy he can surely see that a great way to really solidify his own ideas is to look in depth at the opposition. Butler’s work gives wide scope for criticism if you’re prepared to put the work in to really spell out what she alludes to. One of her stock in trades is calls to authority, alluding to well respected theorists as though her interpretation (often a contentious one) is therefore underpinned by their work. She lacks rigour and a philosophy group is a great way to pick that apart.

The challenge for him is going to not being thrown out of the group, I think.

This was obviously coming as a number of the PhD student members had started being into non-binary or experimental dress codes. The university seems to have suddenly had a lot of funding for Queer Studies.

They are starting off with Iris Marion Young and Throwing Like a Girl.

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/worlds-top-thinkers-2022-the-results

Sorry I don't know much about philosophy, but I saw this yesterday.

"Over the years I have quietly radicalized him and he is now more GC than I am."

Oh, I just love it.
And congratulations! 👏
Just tell us HOW did you achieve that?

(I have a huge problem with my own son
on this front, unfortunately. 25yrs old, still living with
me, graduated in 2019, no job to speak of, thinks of himself as some TRA movement beacon of hope
and an "ally", of course. Gets angry, aggressive
and unpleasant every single time I try to broach
any sensible GC comment & start a conversation.
No can do.
He's so up his bloody self-righteous arse,
there's no reasoning with him...
Feeling lonely in my own effing home)

Your bloke might like to start with this: Nussbaum on Butler 1999

Martha Nussbaum is a philosopher rightly taken seriously by other philosophers, unlike Butler, although, as Nussbaum recognises, Butler "... is frequently seen (more by people in literature than by philosophers) as a major thinker." (op. cit.)

It's true 1999 is a long time ago. Things have moved on. But there is other useful stuff around, and this may be a good starting point.

One thing important to realise about Judith Butler, imo, is that her schtick is not so much difficult as it is badly written, with little concession to ordinary concerns about validity of argument and clarity of expression. Don't be misled by her reputation; when it looks like loosely-put-together nonsense, it really is loosely-put-together nonsense.

Nussbaum goes a bit easy on Butler here, in fact. (And Butler has got worse over the years.) But, still, a place to start, as I said. The last few sentences from the piece linked to above:
"Judith Butler’s hip quietism is a comprehensible response to the difficulty of realizing justice in America. But it is a bad response. It collaborates with evil. Feminism demands more and women deserve better."

tldr: Indeed, women deserve better than Judith Butler offers.

I agree with @NumberTheory -- it's always good to get to know the opposition. And have fun.

It might be difficult not to get thrown out though. Let us know how it goes.

Over the years I have quietly radicalized him and he is now more GC than I am

Possibly because I was ahead of the game through work.

First transpeople I met were colleagues. Brilliant colleagues who were getting on with their jobs and life, just happened to be trans. OK with hindsight one was prob AGP but she was awesome and a joy to work with.

I also used to work with teenagers with cancer. It was a noticeable pattern that in a family, one child would have cancer and another an eating disorder. Everyone knew this was a response to horrendous family trauma.

A few years later I met a teen FTM whose parent was dying. Everyone who came across her could see if she hadn't been going through this horrific trauma, she would never have been trans. It was the same situation as the anorexic siblings.

And then a bit later I started work in a prison. You can work it out for yourselves from then on...

This all happened v much before trans was a mainstream thing that was in the media. So just talking about my life and work experience to DH was really enough.

I'm not sure when he really started to 'get it' as opposed to me just wittering at him. But it was a lot of things over time. And also he is fundamentally a nice guy who likes women.

I'd really like someone smarter than me to ask the powers that be why being enby will have a different outcome to all those who "didn't see colour" back in the day.

They ended up doing more harm than good...