Wish me luck, guys (and I mean that word in the most gender-inclusive way); I just re-posted most of my earlier post on the Ms. board. Time to go to bed now if I want to be functional tomorrow; let’s see what interesting reactions morning brings!
Yes, it is! 
If we don’t have access to truth at all, then we don’t have access to the truth that we don’t have access to truth at all. We can never know that we can never know.
I’m not sure I understand. My perspective can be limited and I could still be able to hold true beliefs. I could also have a limited perspective and hold justified beliefs that are false. I don’t see how where I grew up and when makes some of my beliefs true or false.
If they are true, then they are true. To say otherwise is to throw logic out.
Alright. Perhaps a GD thread on the subject might be interesting. In any case, I can understand how fully addressing this issue would drive us even further off topic. 
Well, ok. But the fact that they have it doesn’t mean it is justified.
To some extent I think I understand.
A poem is not a syllogism, yet a poem can be worth reading. There is more to life than logic. This I believe to be true.
If the posters on the Ms board were simply writing haiku or having fun with puns or something of that nature, I wouldn’t have a problem.
However, the posters in that thread on the Ms board were making factual claims about the world. These claims are fair targets for logic, reason, and critical thinking.
I agree. I mean, if someone doesn’t want to be rational there is no way to rationally argue them to the position of rationality. That doesn’t mean there is something wrong with being rational, or that being rational isn’t the best way of validating (or not) factual claims about the world.
I thought that by “listen uncritically” you meant “suspend all judgement”. Now that I know you meant something different, I think I may partially agree. Obviously I’m not going to shut down my critical thinking skills when listening to someone. On the other hand, I’m not going to take them to task for simple mistakes that are unimportant to their central point.
Are you saying that I am not being charitable enough to their position?
I hate to sound callous, but so what? I’m not just going to assume that someone has a valid point just because it’s possible that in the past someone who shares a trait with them possibly had a valid point but someone who shares a trait with me apparantly had a less valid but more convincing point.
If they have a valid point, they should be able to show they have a valid point. I don’t think it’s imposing on people to expect them to be able to defend their beliefs rationally. (Not that I’d expect the random person on the street to react positively if I just walked up to them and started arguing. But in places where ideas are to be shared, such as public message boards on the Internet, people shouldn’t act like they have a right to not have their ideas critically examined.
One hardly needs a position in academia or Congress to be able to defend their beliefs.
Which is all tragic, surely, but hardly an argument that ideas that aren’t rationally defendable should be taken seriously. Yes, it’s possible that someone could come up with an idea that’s true, while lacking the ability to defend it. It’s also possible that someone could consider an idea that does not currently have defenders and come up with a solid defense of it. Such ideas can be considered, but until there is a reason for believing them they should not be believed.
(I hate it when this happens. It’s 11pm and I’ve just rambled on about something for a while, and I suddenly get the feeling that I’m making no sense at all. Hopefully I am. )
And yet I’m hardly a king and the posters on the Ms board are hardly peasants. I have no means to coerce or imprison or harm them, nor do they have any evidence that I would do so even if I could.
Perhaps I have been unclear (which is quite likely). I do not consider merely considering an idea to be akin to taking it seriously. When I say certain ideas shouldn’t be taken seriously, I mean that nobody should feel obligated to accept them. If they want to mull them over in their own mind to see if they themselves can come up with a defense for them, that’s cool. However, if they accept them as true without a defense for them, or if they expect others to mull them over as well (unless they can show that considering the idea is likely to be profitable in some way), then I think they’ve crossed the line.
In any case, just because there are senarios by which rational discourse can lead to bad things, that doesn’t mean rational discourse is a bad thing, or that it should sometimes be set aside. It’s the best thing we have for determining truth - it’s not perfect but to do things any other way would be even less perfect.
I don’t ask for eloquence. I don’t ask for education. I don’t ask for quick-thinking, nor do I ask for rhetorical gift. I ask for the rational defense of beliefs. Are some people who lack such things at a disadvantage in rational discourse? Sometimes. But that can’t be helped. I’m not going to take the time
Yes, beliefs that are held without rationally examining them can be true. But I’m not going to believe something just because it might be true. Nor am I going to spend time on an idea just because it might be true. (Although I might spend time on an idea because it might be true and because of some other factor.)
Tying this (hopefully) back to the original issue …
Person A makes claim X in a public forum.
Person B makes counterclaim Y in that forum.
Person A does not defend claim X.
Person B defends claim Y.
Should we treat claim X as if it were true? I would say no.
Should we treat claim X as if it were untrue? I would say yes.
Is this somehow unfair to person A? Maybe. But to do otherwise would be even more unfair for person X.
Now I need sleep.
I think this comment by Romolapretty much sums this up:
Hansel, while it may be emotionally important for people to be able to share their experiences in a supportive environment, it is, as a way of raising true consciousness of the situation of the oppressed, absolutely useless. Intellectual rigour and contradiction don’t merely exist to “keep people down” (although they can certainly do so if people aren’t rhetorically equipped to defend their beliefs), but to ensure that what comes out means something. Again, even catsix wouldn’t have disputed anything said there if it weren’t for the empirical generalizations made in that thread. It’s funny that someone who is “reconstructed” would even dispute this, considering that deconstruction in the social sciences is essentially a way of ferreting out the problematic aspects of a text. There were several incredibly problematic assumptions in practically everything the Ms posters were saying; assumptions that are under dispute within the feminist community itself, let alone within society at large. These sorts of generalizations are not really even dangerous to society at large, because it will simply ignore them; it is dangerous to the community itself, because (as I said earlier) it merely raises up another false consciousness in the place of the old one, replacing one problematic paradigm with another, possibly even less useful one. The community could (and in many opinions does) miss real problems due to their belief in false ones, and their actions against the latter only strengthens the former.
(See, this is why ethnographers who are actually rigourously studying the meaning of actions and behavior make a point to observe first and comment later, rather than mixing the two up. Implicit assumptions can make even the most seemingly obvious generalization absolutely meaningless).
Just to pick up on a comment:
Methinks you’re bass-ackwardsly bringing Kuhn into this. It is important to understand the epistemological and ontological assumptions that underlie a discussion, but they themselves can prove sources of disputes between paradigms and can produce the anomalies that lead to paradigmatic shifts. Aside from that, where exactly does logic not apply? While your arguments that some can employ it better than others are useful, they’re only useful as methodological critiques, and not critiques of logical analysis as a whole. Sooner or later one has to set down some rules, or you end up in the relativity (everything is relative, including this statement) trap.
By the way… in a different thread (poster by Daniel) the poster who liked the :rolleyes: so much was mocking another poster for his lack of knowledge of statistics, economics, law, and quantum mechanics. I don’t necessarily buy that the rejection of Daniel and catsix is entirely due to this all-encompassing post-modern subjectivism, because I don’t buy that the Ms forums embrace post-modern subjectivism in the first place. While it is a possible defense, I don’t think it fits the situation.
Hehe. Somebody appears not to have been caught in the epistemological and ontological battle between Marxian Political Economy and modern neoclassical Economics. Economics, once you get down to the assumptions and institutional requirements for a functional market, is fuzzier than you might think. 
And why couldn’t you just ignore the urge to bash another message board, crossposting links both ways while you were at it?
You’re not seriously trying to tell us you were surprised to find hardcore feminists on an, uh, feminist message board?
If there’s one thing we learned two years ago when a group of Dopers pulled a similar stunt at the Left Behind Message Boards, is that an exercise like this is completely fucking futile. You’re not gonna change their minds, and they’re not gonna change yours. And you know what? That’s OK. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, no matter how loopy you think it is.
All you end up with is lots of “Us vs. Them”, too many roll-eyes smilies, and a few frustrated moderators who scratch their heads in disbelief, thinking why anyone could be so stupid as to start a cross-MB flame war.
So, on behalf of the Straight Dope Staff, thanks a bunch.
I’m going to echo what Coldy just said and throw in something else on top of it:
Anybody that goes to another board and invokes the name of the Straight Dope to incite dissent and trouble for another board will no longer be a member of the Straight Dope Message Board Community.
I’m going to go read some posts now – on this board and other places – and at the end of it some of you may well lose your privileges here.
It’s perfectly legitimate to disagree with someone else’s point of view – on this board and elsewhere – but there’s rules of civilized behavior everywhere you go and for here too. Maybe not every board is for every person; perhaps your view is not welcomed. In those cases where the weather don’t suit your clothes, the very best thing you can do is leave 'em alone.
Those of you that are so incensed at what goes on at the MsBoards would be twice as furious if someone came over here and acted boorishly, you’d be screaming for us to remove them this very minute if not sooner. So why it is okay for you to do this to someone else?
What you do as an individual is one thing; when you throw our name around, that’s another thing entirely. We won’t tolerate this abuse of our name and reputation.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Sheesh, I went over and posted most of my original post from yesterday (toned down a bit), and pretty much got slaughtered. And all this in spite of the fact that my very first paragraph said that I’d been a Ms. reader for years. I tried to make peace just now; let’s see how it’s taken over there.
Exactly. I posted what I did because I am a woman, I am not a victim, and I object very strongly to the blatant lie that there is no part of my sexuality that isn’t owned by the ‘patrarichy’.
I’m a living, breathing example of why that generalization doesn’t fit, and I wanted to share my life in case there was somebody reading that board that didn’t know there are women who don’t feel like they’re merely characters in someone else’s fantasy.
Except that on the Ms. board, unless you agree with those assumptions, you’re considered to not be a feminist at all. I have a problem with people who think I have to agree with all of their personal dogmatic canons or I can’t possibly be interested in gender equality.
Coldfire: I am not entitled as a woman to post about my expriences in my own life on a messageboard that is supposedly dedicated to forward thinking women interested in personal empowerment because I’m a member here?
I didn’t bring up SDMB at all, and have never mentioned it there. So I found out that they have a message board because I post here. Is that supposed to mean that I’m prohibited from ever posting there because it’ll cause you a headache? Does it mean that as a gender-equity advocate I shouldn’t be trying to express my opinions regarding my feminism on a feminist messageboard?
Punish me for sharing my personal experience and feelings as a woman, because hey, it’s not like I could’ve been genuinely interested in a discussion over there. Right. And tomorrow I start my new job as Prime Minister of Mars.
Of course you can go post what you like wherever you like, pretty much. What we object to is using the Straight Dope as imprimatur for your views, regardless of how unsuitable they might be for your viewing audience.
And we REALLY get upset when a pack of you – however well intentioned – go someplace else and annoy the natives and throw our name around like we sent you.
Perhaps if you had done what we ask of all people that come to our board – that is, lurk, read some posts, get a feel for the place – you would have readily seen there really is no place on that board for your opinion and you would have saved yourself and us a lot of agita. I knew after five minutes worth of reading that there was no way in hell there was going to be real discussion and no one would be changed and it was just not going to be useful.
Does that make what they do right? No, but it’s their board and their game. As you wish your own playground to be respected, respect the rights of others to hold their opinions.
Regardless of how bumblefucked they may be.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
I have no control over whether or not other members of SDMB show up there, nor what the other members of SDMB post, so I don’t really know what it is I’m supposed to do about that.
I read threads on their board for a few days before posting, and I was sincerely interested in actually having a discussion there. What I didn’t expect was that my personal experiences would be attacked because they disagreed with a single blanket generalization. Presumably I should’ve expected to be attacked for it, but I really didn’t want to tar the posters there as a bunch of reactionaries who couldn’t be interested in hearing the honest feelings of another woman.
So I posted there because reading and re-reading and then reading again made me interested in the discussions. I’ve since branched to a couple more threads, and would like to keep posting here and there, since I have found that each fulfills a different niche of civil discourse (and in a couple of the other threads there, things are far less heated.)
Can’t speak for anyone else, but I know that my intent was not to ‘invade’ anyone, and any assumption that it was is as offensive as the idea that I shouldn’t like porn because I’m a rape survivor.
I hope nobody here is taking issue with either of my postings on Ms., as I tried my darndest to qualify my remarks very carefully, and I write for a living. I also read both threads in their entirety before posting anything: it took quite a while, and I’m a fast reader.
In return, I got jumped on by 2 of the 3 people at Ms. who reacted at all to my post; they weren’t even addressing the substance of what I said. (I did say that some of the Ms. posters seemed pretty grumpy, but the people who reacted jumped to the conclusion that I meant them in particular. Their prerogative, but in the end they certanly proved me correct.)
All in all, it was a pretty rude reception, and I’m pretty disappointed at the level of discourse among those who I thought were my fellow feminists. I wasn’t asking them to agree with me, but I thought I could expect them to at least pay attention to what I was saying before pouncing on me, fangs bared.
That was probably the dumb part. Their going over to the Ms. Board was of course in their rights, the poster who drew attention to this thread, however, was foolish at best.
Now
My graduate degree is in economics, I am quite aware of the theoretical underpinnings of the discipline. I could give a fuck, however, about an ‘epistmelogical’ debate with Marxists. Marxian theory failed empirically, end of story.
As to the requirements, they’re not fuzzy per se. It is engaging some of the more abstract theory --e.g. neo-classical, which is in any case hardly my favored school of thought-- in terms of applied economics. An empirical and testable issue in the long run, as seen in the rise of behavioural economics in the past decade. Surely not hard science but rather more scientific and rigorous than the self-indulgent post-modernist rot bandied about in literature.
C’mon, folks. Re-read the thread in it’s entirety from their perspective. Take note how absolute the hijack was. Click on the link back here and see how that would have colored your perspective. You may question the legitimacy of the discussion personally, but when half a dozen of you seize upon the notion that they are intellectually dishonest and attempt to pound them into the ground with that fact, it doesn’t matter if you were acting independently; the cumulative effect is the same.
Even if you had the best of intentions, the perception is one of hijacking and baiting.
The Dopers started this thing; they should have the good grace and sense to end it peaceably. Personally I think that starts with an apology.
And you’re lucky, even. I am very interested in these issues. I asked some questions, spent time doing research, and posted accordingly. I don’t think it appears that I went looking for a fight.
And I got really no response at all.
<shrug>
Well, I’m the one that posted the link back here, and in retrospect, I can see that it wasn’t a very good idea. Please understand that I didn’t do it to suggest that I Was Representing The Straight Dope.
On the contrary, I felt kinda bad that shit was being talked about them over here without their knowledge, and I thought they’d appreciate the opportunity to respond to what was being said. In my twisted way, I thought that it would be unfair for me to post anything there WITHOUT telling them how I’d learned about the thread. I do apologize for any headache that it caused the moderators.
I’m more used to posting in a trio of game-related message-boards that crosspost links all the time and think nothing of it. It’s extremely common in the boards I’m more familiar with to say, “I found out about X at location Y,” and is something of a courtesy to the other folks in the thread. I honestly didn’t realize that it’d blow up like this.
Once again, my apology for the crosspost.
Daniel
True story:
Years ago, I was driving cross-country with a friend, and we stopped on an off-road and started to eat a picnic lunch in an overgrown field at the edge of a forest.
Then we heard gunfire.
We looked in the direction it came from and saw, off in the distance, a little battered wooden house adjoining the field we were in. It was hidden in the trees, so that we hadn’t seen it at first. And we could see the silhouette of a man standing in the window with a shotgun.
He could’ve come out and said, “Scuse me! This is private property – would you mind leaving?” and we would’ve done so, no problem. The shotgun wasn’t necessary.
Still, he got his message across. We left.
But you think I should’ve gone back and apologized to him?
Fuck that.
Daniel
Daniel-would you let it go already? Sheesh!
I was the one who was originally posting there, however, I never mentioned the SDMB until someone posted the link to this thread there. I was rather dismayed about that.
My problem is I’m hot headed, and I hate people who go around, holier than though, making generalizations. I asked a few questions, and then I thought I’d make a thread here, asking if people agreed. It was NOT my intention to start an invasion.
I feel really awful about this whole mess.
Also, I originally went there, not from SDMB, but from SAAN. That was where the whole thing was started. I just made a thread here to rant.
for all of us who are annoyed by the blanket disregard for opposing views on the Ms. boards, here is a simple cure.
IGNORE THEM
We will nbot change their minds, nor they change ours. Delete the links from your history folder, and lets get back to what we do best.
Hardcore Nudity!!
I went over there to discuss. For that I was mocked, scorned, and called a rapist. A rapist!
No, I will not be apologizing to them. Not now. Not ever.
Ender-YOU are Redne?
Oh shit…that makes sense. Dammit, I can’t believe they said that to YOU.