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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   44935 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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I've written an article in which I discuss a somewhat common idea regarding the idea of trans people "existing" [1]. Some trans rights activists (TRAs) refer to denying the statement "transwomen are women" as denying the existence of trans people. Another manifestation of this is when people argue that denying that transwomen are women is threatening to transwomen's existence. The same applies to transmen of course. I argue that these arguments rely on ambiguity in language about "existence." Denying the existence of transwomen seems very silly because that is an unusual way to describe rejecting that a transwoman actually is a woman. Phrasing this as a threat to existence evokes thoughts of genocide. I think this is another case of language being used in an unusual way that is misleading, although perhaps not intentionally. This description of "anti-trans" attitudes should be avoided as it is not accurate and morally charged in a misleading way.

[1] https://parrhesia.substack.com/p/do-transgender-people-exist

Phrasing this as a threat to existence evokes thoughts of genocide.

I always do a double take at the idea of a population that is (largely) voluntarily sterile could be subject to "genocide," since that term literally invokes the idea of a genetic lineage. Can we blame New Atheism for the "genocide" of the last remnants of the Shaker community, who practice celibacy and rely on conversions from outside the community? There are, last I checked, exactly two living Shakers, down from thousands at their cultural peak.

To be clear, I'm not attempting to lessen any of the usual definitions of genocide, but I think trying to wield the weaker definitions as a rhetorical weapon cheapens actual violence against actually-vulnerable groups.

I've always got a fear in the back of my mind about what form that "cheapening" might take. A bubble bursting may be the worst-case scenario, where all at once how overvalued some overstretched concept is gets noticed and reacted against, resulting in the central examples of the concept being undervalued in turn. If this happens to concepts like "being oppressed," or "being marginalized" or "being downtrodden," the result would be really nasty.

I'd prefer if we stay on target as much as possible, but I have no idea how to control that.

Far more scary is to consider the burst already happened.

Who today would actually contest their ennemies being marginalized in a real and not ideological sense? Who would contest a genocide of the people they have otherized?

I was optimistic on this question. Post COVID I am no longer so. Rwanda could happen here, we don't have limiting principles anymore in the West.

I believe the Shakers themselves stopped accepting converts. The incentive for bad actors to convert is too great with the numbers this low and the age of current members. For example, a cynic might license the "Shaker seal of approval" to furniture companies or the like. I believe they've got some decent real estate as well. I toyed with the idea of joining but it seems like too much hassle for the novelty of maybe being head of a 300 year old religious group someday, which was my interest in it.

I think trying to wield the weaker definitions as a rhetorical weapon cheapens actual violence against actually-vulnerable groups.

I too have noticed how counter-to-normal-language-use it is to describe as 'genocide' any effort that stands to reduce people's chances of sterilizing themselves. Though I am also reminded of the deaf community culture was over whether to give deaf children cochlear implants, which will allow them to participate in the wider society but will almost certainly result in them not being able to participate as full members in the community of sign-language-using deaf people. To the extent that deaf people are like, say, a Native American tribe that only has a few hundred people left who speak their language and practice their culture, who want to prevent it from going extinct, this does seem like a concern that has some validity.

[Edit: I should have scrolled down; this digression has already been discussed]

I always do a double take at the idea of a population that is (largely) voluntarily sterile could be subject to "genocide," since that term literally invokes the idea of a genetic lineage

That's kind of the point: for a synthetic group that depends on everyone else allowing and/or funding their transitions it's in their interests to frame simple non-endorsement as genocide

It's essentially a form of moral arm-twisting to ensure they get what they want.

Genocide, as defined by international law, does not have to involve killing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention

any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Forcible conversion of religious group or assimilation of national group is genocide, even when no one dies in the process.

(the question is what counts as "national, ethnical, racial or religious group", case law is scarce)

One amusing consequence of (d) is that, if you are aware of the fertility-reducing effects, and if we take the ethical stance that reasonably-foreseeable consequences of your actions can be presumed to be intentional, then promoting womens' education among a population counts as genocide.

So under international law the most plausible (although non-central)example of genocide in western countries is differential CPS targeting of the devoutly religious.

Doesn't this prove too much? Attempting to destroy gay or lesbian communities seems bad in the same way; aren't they also "(largely) voluntarily sterile"?

If anything, that's what I'm trying to point out with the example of the Shakers: they are voluntarily sterile (celibate), and they really are almost certainly going to disappear completely within my lifetime, but I don't know that this fact makes a good argument against anti-Shaker (or more broadly, anti-Chrisitian or anti-Theist) communities as "committing genocide." I don't really agree with New Atheism, but I think (excluding acts of actual violence) it can't fairly be called "genocide" either.

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