Dewey wrote a book!
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@Moonbat said in Dewey wrote a book!:
Oh man i have not argued on the internet for so long. What political disagreement i have tend to be in person discussions with my wife's circle of friends where my wife is forever worried they will think i'm a Nazi. A rather different set of circumstances than 2007.
But for old times sake..
So i think you perceive structure and function in the anatomical and behavioural differences between the sexes - one that has a clear evolutionary origin. Consequently you classify deviations from this structure/function as impairment/disorder/etc.
So from a secular perspective the problem is that this attaches ethical significant to blind forces of evolutionary biology. Just because we are fashioned by natural selection does not automatically mean that in everyday speech we should classify humans using an evolutionary perspective. This is particularly true when the words have some normative significance to them. Evolution by natural selection is a blind force, it's crucial for understanding how things are but totally inconsequential when deciding whether some aspect of human behaviour is good or bad. As there is no intention to evolution by natural selection there is no "fundamental" wiring, there is only wiring. There is no intrinsic order, there is just whatever emerges. To talk about homosexuality being an impairment is a bit like talking about a moon that rotates in the opposite direction to the planet that it orbits as an 'impaired' moon because the usual explanation for how planetary bodies form means they all rotate in the same direction. We don't speak like this because we aren't seduced into the idea that there is some intention that all planetary bodies are 'supposed' to rotate the same way, while the fact natural selection can look like design means people are seduced into talking as if it is design and that the designer has a specific purpose.
So to recap - from a secular perspective it doesn't really make sense to talk about some putative fundamental order that is being violated by X human behaviour.
Great line of reasoning, for sure. Why I can't get on board with that, which won't sway you, is I don't see human as essentially "just another evolutionary creature output that is changing over millions of years..." I believe humans are elevated and selected by the Divine. (Which I know you addressed as you spoke from a purely secular perspective)... We have advanced characteristics... curiosity, logic, creativity, intelligence, communication, morality, philosophy, culture. (Although animals do have their own talents.... survival, reaction speed, sensing weather changes...)
So yes, I could see how homosexual characteristics could be classified as evolutionary/diverse samples in the wider population. Just as all impairments, or maladies small and large. Need glasses? High blood pressure? Grout? Various maladies I have, even if minor... all deviations from the physical/mental health ideal. Doesn't mean they are inherently bad, at all. Just something we have to deal with. And when it comes to the norm for human sexuality, attraction to the opposite sex as one enters adulthood is the norm... homosexual or other sexual maladies across the spectrum of extremity, is just that.
Secondly if you were to be consistent you would have to call alot of behaviours that will seem normal or even desireable to be impairments or disorders. Use of birth control is the mother of all behavioural disorders (as an aside it is an amazing fact, and one that AI doomers are quick to point out, that evolution by natural seelction has continuously selected genes for their reproductive fitness for the best part of 4 billion years. Yet just doing that, just picking the best replicator again and again and again, ultimately built a machine that subverts it's own replication). Now you may be happy with that but how about acts of altruism - if you put yourself at risk to safe the life of a stranger, you are engaging in a behaviour that is very clearly opposed to the evolutionary forces that shaped you - should we call it a behavioural disorder?
Voluntarily taking medicine or other manual actions doesn't seem as an impairment to me. If the women is unable to ovulate, that would be. But if they take a pill to prevent ovulation, that is just a manual action. I did chuckle at the 4 billion years has led us to subvert our own replication lol.
Given the above two points and since people who are gay are totally fine living their lives provided they are treated like everyone else and crucially, absent religious indoctrination, do not view themselves as defective in any way. I don't think there can be any justification in defining them as such. Particularly given that such language is intrinsically judgemental and almost always carries stigma.
Understood, which is why I try to emphasize that my use of disorder does not have the intent to be insulting but a way of classifying behavior... if a man is unable to produce sperm, or a woman unable to ovulate, or a person attracted to the same sex, these are all forms of procreative defections, even if some can be mitigated by science. And the blunt purpose of sex is to procreate, although we know there are other benefits as well...
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@Doctor-Phibes said in Dewey wrote a book!:
I don’t really understand the connection between being gay and having sex with your mother. Could somebody explain?
Depends if you're the daughter, I guess.
The serious answer... it's just a (real world) example of people drawing lines about what sexual behaviors or attractions are acceptable. 20 years ago I bet 0% of the world would say it's acceptable, now I bet 10% of the world thinks it's ok as long as the two people are consenting adults, as @Klaus said.
In other words, the facts haven't changed... I drew my line (mine, not others) a while ago and it hasn't changed, but it seems the line has changed for many people, politicians and young people especially, as compared to the 90s. The facts haven't changed about the sexual behaviors, just the cultural/pressure to be cool with it.
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@89th said in Dewey wrote a book!:
@Doctor-Phibes said in Dewey wrote a book!:
I don’t really understand the connection between being gay and having sex with your mother. Could somebody explain?
Depends if you're the daughter, I guess.
The serious answer... it's just a (real world) example of people drawing lines about what sexual behaviors or attractions are acceptable. 20 years ago I bet 0% of the world would say it's acceptable, now I bet 10% of the world thinks it's ok as long as the two people are consenting adults, as @Klaus said.
In other words, the facts haven't changed... I drew my line (mine, not others) a while ago and it hasn't changed, but it seems the line has changed for many people, politicians and young people especially, as compared to the 90s. The facts haven't changed about the sexual behaviors, just the cultural/pressure to be cool with it.
Maybe it’s not just cultural pressure. I’m a lot smarter about some things than I was 40 years ago. A scary thought, possibly. Imagine how freaking dumb I was back then!
Proud supporter of Plan 2525. Everything you think, do and say will be in the pill you took today.
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@89th said in Dewey wrote a book!:
@Doctor-Phibes said in Dewey wrote a book!:
I don’t really understand the connection between being gay and having sex with your mother. Could somebody explain?
Depends if you're the daughter, I guess.
The serious answer... it's just a (real world) example of people drawing lines about what sexual behaviors or attractions are acceptable. 20 years ago I bet 0% of the world would say it's acceptable, now I bet 10% of the world thinks it's ok as long as the two people are consenting adults, as @Klaus said.
In other words, the facts haven't changed... I drew my line (mine, not others) a while ago and it hasn't changed, but it seems the line has changed for many people, politicians and young people especially, as compared to the 90s. The facts haven't changed about the sexual behaviors, just the cultural/pressure to be cool with it.
I think that is very true.
Not sure how true it is, but there are stories about in Roman times about public origies, etc. Or supposedly, the 1960's in the US will alot more permissable.
Like many things, cultural acceptance or non acceptance seems to go on a pendulum. Swings one way, things become more accepted. Then will go back.
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@Moonbat said in Dewey wrote a book!:
I should say that all my wife's friends are very intelligent knowledgeable wonderfull people (and none of them think i'm a Nazi) but they are the European left wing types with a background in the humanities and social sciences and i have very interesting discussions with them but where they are the one arguing for what i think you would call the popular 'progressive' view and i am arguing against. Hence her fears.
I do wonder whether i've become more conservative, they say that's what happens when you get older. But then again I don't think my views have changed much. Instead i think that popular progressive movements have gone nuts. Then again maybe that's what you guys thought 20 years ago.
Interesting. I think the lines have moved, but we haven't so much.
And while I'd like to end on that nice note. I'd argue this is what conservatism is all about... there is a natural, inevitable, shift towards the left in terms of culture.... conservatism (at least to me) is in the business of preserving, or at least... slowing that shift. Sometimes at the expense of sounding bigoted even if that is not the intent. One could argue any form of tradition or culture is bigoted, albeit not the 2nd half of the definition that indicates an antagonistic view of those not in that culture/belief.
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@taiwan_girl said in Dewey wrote a book!:
@89th said in Dewey wrote a book!:
@Doctor-Phibes said in Dewey wrote a book!:
I don’t really understand the connection between being gay and having sex with your mother. Could somebody explain?
Depends if you're the daughter, I guess.
The serious answer... it's just a (real world) example of people drawing lines about what sexual behaviors or attractions are acceptable. 20 years ago I bet 0% of the world would say it's acceptable, now I bet 10% of the world thinks it's ok as long as the two people are consenting adults, as @Klaus said.
In other words, the facts haven't changed... I drew my line (mine, not others) a while ago and it hasn't changed, but it seems the line has changed for many people, politicians and young people especially, as compared to the 90s. The facts haven't changed about the sexual behaviors, just the cultural/pressure to be cool with it.
I think that is very true.
Not sure how true it is, but there are stories about in Roman times about public origies, etc. Or supposedly, the 1960's in the US will alot more permissable.
Like many things, cultural acceptance or non acceptance seems to go on a pendulum. Swings one way, things become more accepted. Then will go back.
Agreed, although the momentum to go back seems weaker, in the long term.
That being said... even as we have this inevitable march towards secularism or liberalism (not in the Kamala way... more in the "anything goes" way), I do have a feeling and hope that society will focus more on the merits and production of a person. "How do they treat me, how do they help others, how do they help society".
As somewhat of a conservative libertarian, I'm cool with that... live and let live, even if the "live" part includes being able to state your opinions that offend others. As it applies to this thread, believe it or not I'm fine with homosexuals doing their thing. Live and let live. I think I said back in 2007... have a relationship with your cat for all I care. When it comes to government policy I do think there is a logical line to be drawn, but that's another story.
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@Doctor-Phibes said in Dewey wrote a book!:
@89th said in Dewey wrote a book!:
@Doctor-Phibes said in Dewey wrote a book!:
I don’t really understand the connection between being gay and having sex with your mother. Could somebody explain?
Depends if you're the daughter, I guess.
The serious answer... it's just a (real world) example of people drawing lines about what sexual behaviors or attractions are acceptable. 20 years ago I bet 0% of the world would say it's acceptable, now I bet 10% of the world thinks it's ok as long as the two people are consenting adults, as @Klaus said.
In other words, the facts haven't changed... I drew my line (mine, not others) a while ago and it hasn't changed, but it seems the line has changed for many people, politicians and young people especially, as compared to the 90s. The facts haven't changed about the sexual behaviors, just the cultural/pressure to be cool with it.
Maybe it’s not just cultural pressure. I’m a lot smarter about some things than I was 40 years ago. A scary thought, possibly. Imagine how freaking dumb I was back then!
Fair enough... as it relates to this topic, maybe your position hasn't changed, and it's ok if it has... just the facts haven't, and it's surprising how many people have let their sails change directions so they don't accidentally dock into the Port of Unpopularity.
(My view has changed over time as well on a number of topics.... change is possible!)
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@89th said in Dewey wrote a book!:
Understood, which is why I try to emphasize that my use of disorder does not have the intent to be insulting but a way of classifying behavior... if a man is unable to produce sperm, or a woman unable to ovulate, or a person attracted to the same sex, these are all forms of procreative defections, even if some can be mitigated by science. And the blunt purpose of sex is to procreate, although we know there are other benefits as well...
Ok so it seems like from what you wrote (not just this quoted section) that you accept that the perspective you articulate has some explicitly religious character (because from the secular perspective the notion of 'purpose' is metaphorical and so loses significance, while notions of physical/mental health 'ideal' are subjective). I also understand you don't mean it to be insulting, and I completely believe you when say you don't have any ill-intentions. I guess the reason the youth will pick up battle axes about this stuff is because ultimately calling people inferior is unavoidably stigmatising because the word is intrinsically value-laden.
I do see this won't move you because yeah you have a religious component which means in some ways you think there really is a purpose that some creator had in mind and that you ultimately lay claim to know what it is, and so to you the statements are truth claims... I think probably we can't really move beyond this point without examining the components of our respective world views and I'm quite sure since I failed to convince you 15 years ago, when i was far sharper on the topic I would have little chance now :).
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LOL you're just as sharp now. And I'm not calling gay people inferior, I'm just labeling the concept of homosexuality as what it seems to be... a sexual attraction disorder that perhaps someone is born with, or is learned, or a combination thereof. This initially came up in this thread under the topic of pedophiles having character issues or something, which is obviously not the same thing as homosexuality, but did bring up (in my mind) the spectrum of sexual attraction disorders and where folks draw the line from both a legally protected standpoint as well as a culturally accepted standpoint... a line that seems to continue to shift or dare I say, evolve.
