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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   31913 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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https://unherd.com/2023/04/is-trans-the-new-anorexia/

I’m not sure exactly how culture war-like this idea is, but I’ve never actually heard anyone else compare Anorexia with trans people before. I can see the social contagion factor in both especially for women who are much more conforming than men tend to, and because women have higher neuroticism than men. What I’m not sure about is some of the other ideas, that being trans is about self-negation and a sort of renouncing of their body.

but I’ve never actually heard anyone else compare Anorexia with trans people before

It's been debated here. I didn't get much pushback for saying it's contagion.

It’s plenty CW. Too much, even.

“DAE think trans is like [insert bad thing here]?” Isn’t exactly new to this board.

I don't think you understand what the CW thread is, or apparently the toggles.

It's not a broad brush "trans bad", there's content to engage with here. If you choose not to engage with it that's fine but don't do the whole 'deplorables' routine thanks

It's definitely the kind of post that belongs here, it's just very well-trod ground, without a particularly novel angle. Direct trans-anorexia analogies are not new here

Also, the OP should probably have a few excerpts or more commentary on the title post. (And I imagine, if we had a BLR, OP would be on the high end of the average post there! Generally, that the BLR would have low quality posts says something about the userbase.)

I'm happy for this kind of meta discussion if that's your take but I view this place as more like a party with different rooms, I just ignore content I'm not interested in (with the - toggle). As for this particular content I'm not always on to see X thing and so I'm happy to have repetition - I even reserve the right to repeat points myself as while I try to evolve my posts and mix them up, I also repeat myself, but who cares, were all free to ignore content or complain about it.

What I detect sometimes, and this is likely my own conspiratorial projection, is a kind of distaste for me wanting to continue to talk about it. The reality is this trans thing is an ongoing culture war, and I think I'm losing, so I'm motivated to try to share my perspective.

“rooted in the belief that if you change your body, you will no longer hate yourself”

This certainly sounds like the staple of what is being promoted by trans campaigners, especially to the vulnerable children. It is very common to fell anxiety, alienation and confusion when growing up. And the campaigners - who often are in a position of authority and trust towards children - have an explanation ready: the feelings that you have are there because your body is wrong. If you take these chemicals and cut off these parts, and become a trans, it will fix all that. From the reports, it is certainly looking like what is happening. Of course, the reports could be wrong or distorted, but so far it matches pretty well.

The 'social contagion' theory isn't implausible, although I think no small number of pro-trans people would frame it instead as people who were already trans but now realized that they were and that it was possible to do something about it. And they're not exactly wrong : it's rude to make guesses about people before/unless they come out, but the transhumanist philosophy (and even transhumanist aestheticists) has had no small number of people who have had decades-long fascinations with body transformation as a form of self-improvement who weren't exactly a surprise when they turned out to be trans.

((FTM examples exist, but are small-crowd enough that I'm not hugely comfortable linking them.))

There's some important philosophical and pragmatic arguments about this even within the pro-trans framework -- not everyone who thinks those thoughts actually wants them, some who want something end up in some non-binary variant, and there are a variety of tradeoffs and physical limitations of existing technology such that even people who want to transition might be better-served by using some things and not others in a way that's getting obfuscated by a lot of mainstream discourse.

However, even outside of that, both perspectives have missed that they're looking at a metric, not a measure. You don't have a magical "this many people are trans" marker any more than you have a good definition of what being "trans" even is, but under that you don't really have good measures on even specific events. "How many people are using Tavestock" isn't the same thing as even "how many people are injecting sex hormones", as anyone who's noticed bodybuilders can guess. There already was a small industry of XX-chromosone'd people injecting testosterone, going butch as hell, and wanting to be called "sir" in the late-90s; there's some fun discussions about whether they're more trans now that they've been able to get hysterectomies easier, but it's not exactly the most practical of questions.

And there's been a lot of moving these to be higher-visibility, both in the general sense (trans pride) and in the seeing-like-a-state one (required coverage for insurance providers, changing rules for various government IDs). I don't think it's enough to explain the entire change, but it makes any attempt to use the metrics without acknowledging their limitations more than a little frustrating.

And they're not exactly wrong : it's rude to make guesses about people before/unless they come out, but the transhumanist philosophy (and even transhumanist aestheticists) has had no small number of people who have had decades-long fascinations with body transformation as a form of self-improvement who weren't exactly a surprise when they turned out to be trans.

I'm a transhumanist, and my position on the whole trans issue is that I sympathize with their goals, but simply disagree that they can be realistically achieved with the current science and engineering of the time. The day when it's possible to turn a natal male or female into the other gender while being biologically indistinguishable on the metrics I care about, we have no room for disagreement at all.

I'm certainly not trans, for what that's worth.

We've bumped into each other about this a few times but it's difficult to articulate the problem I have this this position, possibly because it sounds like a reasonable take but it is jarring unrelated to the actual question at issue. Trans people and the trans movement are not reasonable transhumanists that think it'd be neat if they could grow breasts/penises or satisfy whatever aesthetic/explorative impulse they have. These people are making actual claims based on a worldview that is very different to the one you've expressed here. You don't agree with the trans movement at all, to put it in another peculiar view you have, it's like if when debating whether a teleporter kills you or not there was a faction claiming that people who want to use teleporters are actually already at the destination not just that they'd be better off if they were able to get there.

I recall making a similar statement in the recent past, but I honestly don't recall if it was with you, or whether you said:

These people are making actual claims based on a worldview that is very different to the one you've expressed here

If you mean that they want to become the opposite sex of what they were born as, while asking for the same treatment as said sex before they "perfectly" transition, then my stance is that their aim to change their sex is perfectly fine in my eyes, and I only have mild resentment at being asked to treat them like that before they finish that (difficult) task.

What exact aspect of their worldview are you referring to?

They are not claiming to want to become anything, they are claiming that they already are that thing. The fundamental bit is that there is some element beyond simple desire at play.

In this regard, I certainly disagree with them. Self-identification only suffices for the purposes of one's choice of football club, not for things of real consequence!

If someone self-identifies as a doctor, I'm not a serious credentialist, I would merely ask that they prove they can pass the same exams and demonstrate sufficient knowledge before I'd let them do something with it.

If you mean that they want to become the opposite sex of what they were born as

My understanding of the "mainstream" trans view is that the claim is they are the sex (well, gender, but they also claim any distinction there is meaningless, so...) they claim at any given moment. Any biological reality that contradicts this claim is considered irrelevant to their essential gender identity, which is all that matters. Any claim they made yesterday that contradicts today's claim is considered irrelevant.

Obviously, there are lots of different views in "the community" about this, many of which contradict the others. Sometimes, you get multiple, contradicting views from the same person. What I'm describing is my understanding of the concept of trans embodied by Twitter/Tik Tok/Corporate Approved Trans, which seems poised to be the ideology that defines the community under it's singular umbrella. Or at least the main Cathedral, opposition to which will define the heretics.

From that point of view, there is no process of becoming the opposite gender; your assertion that such (once possible) will earn them the regard they want in your eyes inherently invalidates their belief that there is no process other than their own profession of belief.

Thanks for elaborating, I certainly don't agree with that view, IMO, mere self-identification is insufficient for actually becoming something, you have to put in the work to become it first.

while being biologically indistinguishable on the metrics I care about, we have no room for disagreement at all.

At that point in time, masculine minded abrasive assholes running around in sexy female bodies will be a welcome reprieve from the overall weirdness. I mean, how comfortable are you with child-appearing adults ? And that's the least of it..

Probably less creepy than hive-minded technologically telepathic genetically engineered geniuses no one can understand who can somehow pull off things ordinarily deemed miraculous ? Wouldn't that be creepy ?

The day when it's possible to turn a natal male or female into the other gender while being biologically indistinguishable on the metrics I care about, we have no room for disagreement at all.

That's potentially interesting, though there's a lot of feeling from the pro-trans side that this is a space where goalposts either get set to pretty unusual places or moved there pretty rapidly. Some of that's due to nutpicking -- one particular radfem mistaking her own silhouette for a transwoman's is nearly a year old now and still goes around the tumblr-sphere, and there's a general class of people who start grabbing the phrenologist tools -- but on the other hand at least part of the drive toward earlier transition reflects adult transitioners who had an unpleasant puberty but also had some side effects from it that were either difficult to change or incompletely changed. And a lot of trans people regularly celebrate whenever tech related to things like cloned organs or less invasive surgical interventions are proposed or developed.

On the flip side, it kinda raises a "what about now" question. Not in a 'dissolve the question' pure-philosophy sorta way, but were it an actual possible proposal would it be acceptable. Presuming no massive technological or engineering changes in the near future, would you have issues if we instead had them put X (malex?/womenx? would at least be less dumb than latinx) as gender ID, widely available transition-as-currently-developed, and otherwise only have trans-specific rules for places where those metrics you care about are directly exposed? Do you think the general populace of trans-skeptics would?

((In practice, I don't think the trans side or the trans-skeptic side has enough trust to make such a compromise, or even the group coherency to make a decision on the matter -- you're going to have different perspectives from the socon catholics, just as the average trans dude's going to have different ones from the high priests of transdom. It seems relevant to explore.))

I'm certainly not trans, for what that's worth.

Yeah, it's definitely far from a universal pattern among transhumanists, and not even all transhumanists with the associated philosophical and aesthetic characteristics have the pattern, and some small portion who otherwise have the pattern aren't trans or don't identify as trans (or gender-whatever).

See if it weren’t for the children angle, I’m not convinced this is worse or better than any other body modification you can do. There are people who insert horns in their heads, dye their eye-whites blue, tattoo themselves on every inch of their body, and split their tongues. They’re freaks, and they accept that as do most of the rest of us. But when you’re talking about children making permanent and life-altering decisions, the issue isn’t trans human, it’s kids not quite having the maturity to understand the gravity of their decisions. If I choose at forty to dye my eye-whites blue (yeah eyes of iblis) I’m forty, I can understand the issues in that decision. I understand I could go blind. I understand that people will see me differently, and that I’m probably not getting conventional jobs after I do it. A kid just saw Dune and thinks it looks cool.

Body dysmorphia is just plain disturbing.

The issue is that for a lot of trans people, the goal is to look like an ordinary member of the opposite sex, not a someone with a unique appearance. And that’s achievable if the person transitions young: they aren’t going to be a freak who looks visibly different from the rest of the population, they’ll just pass as the gender they transitioned to. Meanwhile an adult transitioner is more likely to be conspicuously trans and require cosmetic surgery to look “normal” (especially in the case of MtFs).

While fewer seem to want to go “stealth” these days as opposed to in the past, many do hold conventional jobs. I know trans hairdressers, programmers, cooks, receptionists, etc, and most go through their daily life without having anybody stare at them the way people would stare at someone with horns or who tattooed their whole body.

Presuming no massive technological or engineering changes in the near future, would you have issues if we instead had them put X (malex?/womenx? would at least be less dumb than latinx) as gender ID, widely available transition-as-currently-developed, and otherwise only have trans-specific rules for places where those metrics you care about are directly exposed? Do you think the general populace of trans-skeptics would?

I might mildly dislike it, if it extends to me being forced to use neopronouns at the risk of social disapproval, because I resent being dictated to, but not enough to really care. I'm sure that most trans-sceptics would have a far more negative reaction.

If they look like a duck and fuck like a duck, I'll have no qualms about calling them ducks, but until then it'll only be a minor nuisance and my general desire to be polite means that I'd go along for the sake of people I otherwise respect.

Yeah, it's definitely far from a universal pattern among transhumanists, and not even all transhumanists with the associated philosophical and aesthetic characteristics have the pattern, and some small portion who otherwise have the pattern aren't trans or don't identify as trans (or gender-whatever).

Autistic people are overrepresented in both the Rationalist community and in trans people. I would wager that accounts for what you observe. Scott has written about that association, and wagers that it's likely due to Autistic people being more suggestible and also prone to interpreting their discomfort at the bodily signals neurotypicals take for granted and considering them a sign they're not expressing as the gender they actually are. Since Rats are also more open to experience, they might have been among the first on the bandwagon.

Wouldn’t therapeutics to simply cure gender Dysphoria or any underlying conditions be the straighter line from A to B from a technological point of view?

The idea of an “anti-Dysphoria” vaccine makes more sense than a totally lossless surgical gender swap.

I swear, bringing this up in the debate makes TRAs and their ilk more incensed than anything than anything I’ve ever written. I’ve gotten banned and sent viscous DMs for even suggesting it.

But in this theoretical, transhumanist future with shiny happy people is it not simpler and more likely that no one feels the need to transition at all due to high quality therapeutics than the 24/7 all you can eat Barbie doll body part swap meet that the medicalists seem to assume is going to pass?

FTR, my reaction to the idea of medically altering the identity bits is something like "Could you kill me in a less horrifying way, please?"

That said, my issues are more age than gender, and the mental aspect is a significant part of that (which only grows more ... perplexing... over time). The trouble though is that it's hard to define what fixing that would look like. If I'm imagining a magical mind-alteration solution, I like to include a daily "revert the alterations, reflect on how they work" period, because that crap is scary and I expect easier to get wrong than not. I have no idea how this could be accomplished in reallity, other than simulations. But I'm not sure much of mine could be resolved outside of simulations. Ugh. Reallity is better than not existing, but I still complain.

All of which is to say, I get the vicious reactions you get for suggesting altering it mentally rather than bodily. I'd prefer people not be so vicious about it (I'm here and not there for reasons), fwiw.

I think the “identity bits” is where, from my perspective, an alien morality gets smuggled in.

No one suggests that if you give someone suffering from eczema a lotion that they are committing “genocide” against the “eczema community”. But wave the magic identity wand around and everything becomes moralized.

If we could make gender Dysphoria disappear tomorrow, from the perspective of alleviating real suffering the answer should be a no brainer. The fact that answering this question causes any consternation is indicative of a bait and switch.

I’ve suffered and continue to suffer mental illness in my life, if I could make it go away and restore my brain to full function I wouldn’t hesitate. I’m not part of a “community”, I just have a condition. The fact that people build a wall called “identity” around their maladies is at best an understandable cope, at worse adding fuel to the fire.

I think the primary mission of medicine should be the restoration of natural function of a person. Much like “Free Speech” has a strict legal definition but also heavily implies a cultural attitude, same with the Hippocratic Oath; “First, do no harm.”

Helping people take care, love and accept their bodies should take complete priority over modifying a healthy, functioning body. If you have to modify, do so only with the goal to restore healthy, natural function.

To me that’s the expansive vision of the Hippocratic oath as regards to body modification, and I find it goes into direct conflict with the transhumanist / cyborg vision of (un?)humanity that to my mind, includes transgenderism.

Someone out there coined the term “trad-humanism” and that more or less seems accurate to describe my view on this.

If I'm suffering from eczema and you conditioned me to stop suffering while the outward symptoms are still there, am I cured?

More comments

It is rightly considered hostile to suggest just removing needs. How would you like a proposal for a communist state where the need to stand out and personal achievement is mentally excised from everyone?

I think that’s rather dramatic, do you feel the same way about depressed people taking SSRIs? Adult ADHD sufferers taking adderal?

Focusing on the “identity” aspect as opposed to the clear suffering of a painful & debilitating mental condition is a mindkilled framing from my perspective.

It’s one of the most bizarre and dysfunctional aspects of (post)modern society.

metrics I care about

Which metrics are those? I might have differing metrics for different cases. In a partner I'd likely want a woman who didn't feel the need to transition to be a woman.

Do they smell female, look female, have a working vagina and can reproduce, whether sleeping with them is indistinguishable from a natal female.

Behave like women? Move like women?

Have the lived experience of a natal woman?

I don't particularly care about those myself. I'm pretty sure a lot of dudes have an ideal image of the first woman in their head as someone who has the body of a woman but the interests or behavior of one of the bros. A noble goal indeed, albeit they're rarer than hens teeth.

A noble goal indeed, albeit they're rarer than hens teeth.

I have known several. They are rather unusual, disagreeable people.

Smell is the one thing that’s pretty much guaranteed with HRT. Trans women smell like women and trans men definitely smell like men, even “down there”. Skin texture also dramatically changes.

Looking female will depend on this early the transition is and the individual’s baseline. Some will pass as female to the average person but remain “clockable” to people who know what to look for. Some trans women who started off hormones young enough will be indistinguishable, some are lucky to pass after a few surgeries. But we definitely can’t take any random biological adult male and making him fully look like a woman.

Reproduction isn’t there yet, but some results of sexual reassignment surgery are quite visually impressive, others less so (Thai surgeons for instance are known to have better results and use a different technique). For some, it has been enough to fool unsuspecting men before (plenty of reports of trans women going stealth) and it certainly is enough to reduce dysphoria and function as a sexual organ in most cases. However, it is a gamble.

I’d say current technology is good enough to alleviate dysphoria and at the very least there’s no point of delaying taking HRT in the hopes of a better transhumanist future. But if you’re just curious and want a magic gender swap to experience life as the opposite sex for whatever reason, obviously we’re not there yet and the current treatments should absolutely not be taken lightly as some changes are irreversible.

Some trans women who started off hormones young enough will be indistinguishable,

There are however reports that trans who were put onto cross-sex hormones before going through puberty are not going to ever have an orgasm, barring some medical miracle.

Yeah, I'm increasingly skeptical of current uses of puberty blockers as the scale and scope of their use has escalated. Some of the discussion seems to get taken out of context when repeated in socon circles -- afaict, Maria Bower's concerns and claims are specifically about Tanner Stage 2-3 vs 3-5, rather than all uses of puberty blockers, which is especially annoying since Tanner 4 and 5 are those which tend to be what trans people point to as particularly dysphoric -- but the rather blaise response by WPATH et all isn't encouraging.

Trans men are certainly far more likely to be able to pass, at the very least as a rather short man. Testosterone is a helluva drug! Sadly that same fact makes undoing its effects on natal males exceedingly difficult, unlikely to happen before the Singularity, which ought to fix that issue if it doesn't kill us along the way.

I for one wish to overthrow the shackles of my flesh, and to the extent that Trans people seek to do the same, albeit for slightly different reasons, I can make my peace with them with hardly any issue.

Are you using "trans women" in opposite ways?

That was a brain fart on my part, I'll fix it!

I'm suprised you haven't heard this before. I agree with your last sentence, especially with MTF. I think the phenomenon is multi-faceted, but AGP is a tremendous part of it, and I don't think anorexia is particularly fetishistic.

Just spend a minute looking up the concept of 'euphoria boner', and it lays waste to most of the narrative. Especially on trans forums where it gets brought up as the most crushingly painful example of pretending something isn't there by closing your eyes. The essential concepts is that it's really common for dudes with TD to get really turned on by crossdressing etc. Instead of accepting this as straightforward evidence that this is psycho-sexual in all the obvious ways, they've invented a tortured concept that no, no, just the opposite. This 'euphoria boner' transcends fetish and is a result of a much deeper sense of self-understanding.

Noone reflects on why this concept only exists conveniently in this use case of convincing yourself a clear turn on is more meaningful than that. Thinking with the wrong head and the related post-nut clarity is pretty well trodden and understood male pyscho-sexuality, and this is the most painfully transparent attempt at gaslighting this into the opposite.

A very common and sad gaslight is some recently cracked egg on these forums makes a comments like, "yo, I'm worried this is a fetish / sexual fantasy, because I get super aroused when I induldge" (usually much less concisely and straightforward, but that's their real point). To which, they are showered with " no no, it's the exact oppposite. Your sexual excitement in this context actually proves it's not a sexual indulgence.... because...um... euphoria boner".

dudes with TD

What's TD?

trangender disphoria.i meant that as a catch all, men wading into transism

On the one hand, the rapid increase in the number of people identifying as trans and undergoing transition in the past few years is a phenomenon that requires an explanation.

On the other hand, trans ideation is something that arises quite naturally and spontaneously in certain individuals. It seems difficult to explain in terms of anything like “social contagion” or “renunciation of the body” because some people demonstrate a strong pre-reflective affinity for it. Phenomenologically speaking, it’s continuous with other types of familiar desires, and does not represent a radical break in kind: some people really want to be rich, some people really want to be astronauts, and some people really want to be the opposite sex. That last one is a very perplexing sort of desire to someone who has never experienced it before, which leads them to assume that there must be more going on than meets the eye, there has to be some sort of theory that explains it because who could want something like that.

In fact I assume (but cannot prove) that at a basic level, most (MTF) transsexuals are motivated by this basic I-just-want-it sort of desire, rather than any sort of complex story about how they have a deep internal proprioception that they really are the opposite sex; but the former just sounds like idle fancy to other people, while the latter sounds like a serious medical disorder that requires treatment and social accommodation, so that’s the public-facing story they go with.

Any complete theory of transsexuality has to accommodate both facets of the phenomenon: on the one hand, the rapid increase in cases which is obviously socially conditioned, and on the other hand, the fact that it arises spontaneously and seemingly without cause in at least some individuals. (I don’t think it’s completely without significance that one can find a certain fascination with the idea of men becoming women that dates back to ancient mythology, and continues to reappear in various guises - see for example Freud and Lacan’s analysis of the case of Dr. Schreber).

Doesn’t anorexia also arise spontaneously in some people? All social contagions have to start somewhere.

It existed before but the modern framing made it vastly more common and probably also more lethal.

The primary demographic are borderline personality disorder women, correct me if I'm wrong but they were responsible for something like 2/3rds of the serious eating disorders such as bulimia or anorexia.

I'm sure they all start somewhere, but some of the more classic examples of social contagion aren't ubiquitous in the modern era. Various dancing manias and speaking in tongues come to mind as two likely-social phenomena that you don't see as often as a few hundred years ago.

I would be interested if anyone has any numbers on this, though. If nothing else, the rate of spontaneous genesis seems akin to the frequency of appearance of physical pathogens: frequent zoonotic crossover makes substantial differences in how we treat influenza versus smallpox, for example.

There's also the "TikTok-induced Tourette's" thing. It makes me wonder how much mental illness in general could be induced by awareness-raising.

I’m not sure exactly how culture war-like this idea is, but I’ve never actually heard anyone else compare Anorexia with trans people before.

This is very much a big issue in the Culture War! If you don't want to be banned or harrased e.g. on certain subreddits you need to avoid this line of reasoning. Because you are supposed to say: "they have always been there they are more comfortable to express in the modern day". One of the first things you notice is that you haven't heard of it: my claim for the reason is "media bias" and gender ideologs.

I don't see a reason why a study in academia couldn't be constructed that could prove or disprove a link between eating disorders and gender dysphoria. I've seen claims made by various people that this research is not being funded or passing an ethics board because the research would be deemed "transphobic".

I think you may be getting confused between "gender dysphoria" and "body dysmorphia", which are related but distinct.

Note: This was wrong of me... but I'll keep it for posterity

Old irrelevant comment:

Of course they are distinct but I'm not confused, I'm claiming there is a way of doing a study that could disconnect if they are truly distinct or show that they are related some way. Then I'm also parroting without reference a claim that these studies are stopped with reasoning of being "transphobic". I don't think that it is an unviable hypothesis that could be proven or disproven that "gender dysphoria" and "body dysmorphia" could be related for a specific group like teenagers. I'm not making any claim that they are related though so there is no confusion here.

I don't see a reason why a study in academia couldn't be constructed that could prove or disprove a link between eating disorders and gender dysmorphia.

I think maybe you meant to say "disprove a link between eating disorders and gender dysphoria" rather than dysmorphia. I'm not challenging your assertion.

ah damn... sorry. I'll edit.

I think a useful frame for thinking about trans identification is as a culture bound syndrome. Some conditions obviously have a plain physical aetiology but other conditions are given shape by the culture of the time. For example, hysteria was a common diagnosis of a previous era but no-one suffers from it today. Similarly while people have always starved themselves historically for various reasons, ie religious martyrs, the modern form of anorexia as self-harm among mainly female adolescents is a recent culture bound syndrome - in a sense the cultural availability of the syndrome within the medical context of the time combines with the experience of the individual to give rise to the condition. This culture bound syndrome is hen active and in the modern age can be easily exported as happened with Korea which experienced a sudden arrival of anorexia as essentially a new condition. Note this means it's still very real.

Over time the experiences and language of how people to describe their state spreads and this is what I think is happening with trans. In adolescence significant anxiety and transition to the social world from childhood create a space of confusion and sometimes extreme anxiety in the self-space. The experience of feeling different from everyone else, not fitting in, is actually really common. Additionally some people have additional challenges around sexuality or gender non-conformity, or they may have dysfunctional family or have experienced abuse. In the past, people may have experienced this as more generalised anxiety, deep depression, self-destructive behaviours etc, in more recent times it has become expressed in new modes such as anorexia and direct self-harm. Because gender has become so salient it is now being expressed as gender dysphoria - the language and experience are given to the person by the culture and this reifies their self-experience in these terms.

Combined with the social contagion of the internet and in-group cult dynamics that give short term alleviation of the sense of difference and alienation then we see how the culture bound syndrome can spread.

hysteria was a common diagnosis of a previous era but no-one suffers from it today

It's not diagnosed today. Isn't it that some elements have been shifted to other diagnoses or removed from the DSM like homosexuality?

hysteria

What we called "hysteria" in the 1800s is what we would now call a mixture between straight up mental illness, psychosomatic conditions, poorly-understood bona fide autoimmune diseases, and weird neurological bullshit like complex regional pain syndrome. There's probably other shit in there that is genuine that modern medicine doesn't understand yet.

Could well be, there may be something underlying it, say extreme anxiety. It's not necessarily psychosomatic as it were. The culture bound syndrome gives expression to the underlying symptoms and as you note, the expression/diagnosis can change. I argue that gender dysphoria is potentially like that, something actually experienced by the self, but reified into a particular form. I'm also combining this with the idea of social contagion.

As for social contagion, it is well known that for adolescents in particular, conditions can spread among peer groups, including suicide, anorexia, and antisocial behaviour. I mean we aren't surprised by the positive side of this phenomenon re fashion, musical tastes etc so we shouldn't really be surprised about the negative side.

Another potential clue is that for young people, other mental health indicators such as self-harm and suicide have been increasing rapidly at the same time that gender dysphoria has been rising, again particularly for young adolescent girls, and corresponding to the use of social media. Along with anecdotal reports by teachers and parents of people in the same class coming out as trans around the same time and Lisa Littman's survey of parents showing that internet use was a precursor to coming out and I think you are seeing a pretty strong case for social contagion.

Just do a search of the number of trans/rainbow groups on discord. These internet spaces in addition are perfect in creating cult-like dynamics of conformity. This helps explain how gender clinicians at the Tavistock observed people's narratives to be almost scripted.

This helps explain how gender clinicians at the Tavistock observed people's narratives to be almost scripted.

I think some of them were scripted, because such sites (organised or just a bunch of people like here) offer advice along the lines of "if you want to get X, then this is the line you have to give them".

The same way I see advice online about "if you're going to write in protest to your congresscritter, do it this way because otherwise it will be ignored".

So yeah, it doesn't seem out of bounds that clinics would get a lot of young patients reciting the same "I first knew when I was two, I didn't want to do this, or wear that, and my parents felt that I wasn't what I was assigned at birth and I have suicidal feelings about being forced to be this gender which I am not and I have body dysmorphia" narrative, because they've read "this is what you have to say in order to get the doctors to agree".

I absolutely agree with scripting. I’ve seen it somewhat in people seeking diagnosis of adhd as well. It seems like people sort of learn what kinds of statements are likely to get you the treatment you want (in adhd, it’s Ritalin, and quite often the IR form over the XR form). The issue is serious in psychiatry as too many don’t really question what they’re told, and therefore it’s fairly easy to game the system.

I think there is a definitely a truth to the social contagion aspect for a sizeable amount of FtMs - they comprise the majority of de-transitioners and their numbers have surged in recent years. But I disagree about this part:

The condition has no observable physical symptoms, no objective correlative. If I tell you I’m really a man, you have to take my word for it.

There are a number of physical correlations to being trans, which I’ve previously touched on in a previous post. Mutations associated with MTHFR deficiency were found in 98% of transgender patients in one clinic (versus the expected 20%) and both endocrine abnormalities and auto-immune issues are quite common. Treating the correlates actually seems to improve the psychiatric distress associated with being transgender, although it’s still very early.

The recent surge in trans people could very well be explained by similar factors as to what’s driving the increase in autism, ADHD, autoimmune diseases, inflammation, etc. For instance, micro plastics and other endocrine disrupters in the environment and diet, low vitamin D from not going outside, the recent recommendation for pregnant women to take folate supplements, etc. “Putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin’ frogs gay” is pretty close to the truth, funnily enough.

So if you want to stop young adolescent females from transitioning, instead of blaming it on social contagion and the media, perhaps you should first see if they have congenital adrenal hyperplasia, polycystic ovarian syndrome, or abnormal testosterone levels; there’s a high chance that’s the case.

Yeah - Sharon Megalethery's MCCX theory definitely seems extremely plausible.

If it's agricultural chemicals: are more trans people found near farm runoff or something?

instead of blaming it on social contagion and the media, perhaps you should first see if they have congenital adrenal hyperplasia, polycystic ovarian syndrome, or abnormal testosterone levels; there’s a high chance that’s the case.

What's the likelihood that these conditions arise in a friend-group of middle school girls all at once?

Social contagion among adolescent females is a huge, huge thing. The Salem Witch Trials? Social contagion among adolescent females.

Please post some sources as I've not read anything about this.

I’ve been making that comparison for atleast 8 months. Ever since Scott ran an article on social contagion in anorexia and how anorexia wasn’t common at all until females herd about it.

Honestly been curious if I was the first to use the term like that. But it’s been popping up a lot on social media past few months and others here have been using for atleast 3-4 months. I probably wasn’t first but the social contagion comparison between trans and anorexia I’ve been using for a while.

anorexia wasn’t common at all until females herd about it.

This was an amusing joke even if it wasn't on purpose.

Ever since Scott ran an article on social contagion in anorexia and how anorexia wasn’t common at all until females herd about it.

He didn't make the connection explicitly, but transgenderism was surely on his mind when he wrote it. "Looking back on the debate, it seems as if acceptance of neurasthenia had been so successful that psychiatrists felt obligated to restigmatize this mental disorder in hopes of limiting its adoption. [...] He who has ears to hear, let him listen."

It's disappointing how chickenshit Scott has become in his ACX days. He's effectively cancelproof so there's no need to be this cagey.

He's effectively cancelproof so there's no need to be this cagey.

I think more important than being cancelled is his continued ability to get laid in his social circles. Getting a reputation as a transphobe will most likely make that substantially harder, so I'd expect to see some odd rhetorical contortions in this area.

Isn't he married now?

I think more important than being cancelled is his continued ability to get laid in his social circles.

I thought he wasn't into getting laid.

I thought he wasn't into getting laid.

In his social circle you have to say that to get laid.

No, he's not saying that. You've got it exactly backwards. Read more closely:

What if transphobia is our culture’s version of the penis-stealing witch panic? Wise but evil women (gender studies professors) are using incomprehensible black arts (post-modernism) to make people lose their penises. Sure, those people are losing their penises through voluntary sex-change surgery, but this is just another case of the general principle that we replace the magical explanations natural to other cultures with the medicalized explanations natural to our own.

Scott isn't saying that the belief that transphobia is a threat is the panic and that transphobia isn't very big. He's saying that transphobia itself is the panic; transphobes are treating the pro-trans movement as evil penis-stealing witches.

Scott's dunking on his transphobe outgroup here. It's the exact opposite of saying that the trans movement has gone too far.

It's kind of weird dunk though -- if there actually were witches stealing people's penises in Africa, it seems like the Africans would be entirely correct to panic about it? Witch panics in general are mostly bad when the witches don't exist. For instance, one could argue that the problem with the Red Scare was being bad at identifying the Soviet spies -- they were a real problem!

Scott’s whole deal with transphobia is the argument that because trans want to be identified with their adopted sex, it doesn’t matter that they aren’t really. The ‘transphobic’ view is that it does matter.

Right, but either way the doctors are in fact stealing penises, yeah? To those that think stealing penises is bad, this position just makes Scott witch-adjacent or something.

Stealing, or taking with informed consent? Of course, one can argue that for some things, taking with full informed consent is just as bad as stealing, and that the penis is one of those things, much like how voluntarily selling oneself into chattel slavery is considered unethical and illegal in most of modern society. But there seems to be very different perspectives in the various tribes when it comes to how big a difference there is between stealing and taking with consent for this particular thing.

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He made the comparison explicitly in section VI here: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-the-geography-of-madness

That might be ground zero for trans as social contagion. And his reader base is smarter enough to make the connection between anorexia history and the current trans movement.

For his writing style not saying it directly can slowly change the minds of true believers and the middle ground if he’s not immediately labeled a transphobe.

Also I’d say social contagion is a bit of high class way to say grooming and lacks the pedophilia connotations.

Regardless of the extent that social contagion didn't become top-of-mind for the readership until maybe then, I recall comparison between trans/anorexia as far back as 2015 (you have to read down a few comments, but the context probably starts around there). Perhaps there was already some undercurrent of folks implicitly believing something like social contagion for anorexia at the time, even.

It’s a different phenomenon though. Grooming at least in the traditional sense is someone trying to create the disorder for their own reasons. The Geography of Madness version of social contagion is more that people become aware the disease exists, and then some portion of them get the disorder. The way the disorder is introduced is different.

The Geography of Madness version of social contagion is more that people become aware the disease exists, and then some portion of them get the disorder

My reading of the book was that the take is more that people already have distress and the knowledge of the disorder means they express it in that light. The publicization of the symptom pool gives them a way to finally get a response from medical professionals.

In that sense, taking a distressed autistic kid and telling them - not just via media but by people clearly acting in loco parentis - that their distress is due to transness, affirming them in this and potentially locking them into it imo can justly be called "grooming". Especially when we get into "you don't have to tell your parents".

I think social contagion is actually a completely distinct concept from grooming. When I talk about social contagion I mean "a teenage girl starts restricting her diet/self-harming/identifying as a boy because all her friends are doing it". It's an organic undirected process.

When used metaphorically, "grooming" is more like teachers distributing literature to impressionable children which heavily implies that even banal gender nonconformance may be evidence of clinically significant gender dysphoria, and which misrepresents the efficacy of gender-affirming care.

"Social contagion" is a bit like mass hysteria. "Grooming" is recruitment. Believing that one of them is happening does not imply believing that the other is.

I can agree they are different words. And social contagion is likely the better word for this. That being said I think grooming and social contagion are happening at the time. And they have a lot of similiarities and I believe overlaps.

For his writing style not saying it directly can slowly change the minds of true believers and the middle ground if he’s not immediately labeled a transphobe.

Yeah, I don't believe in pendulums anymore, but here I'm getting the feeling the more savvy parts of the progressive movement are starting to believe they drove off a cliff, and are bracing for impact.

Also I’d say social contagion is a bit of high class way to say grooming and lacks the pedophilia connotations.

Social contagion is more like your teenage daughter getting obsessed with K-Pop or whatever it is teenage girls get obsessed over these days.

Grooming is more like Yvette Falarca using her position to recruit students into her political cult.

Lisa Littman published her study on rapid onset gender dysphoria in 2018 where she argues it could likely be caused by social contagion. And she suspected it was a kind of social contagion back in 2016 when she first made the study. But the parents of these kids suspected something like social contagion much earlier even if they didn't have the word for it.

I think it's getting talked about more now, because the once successful effort to suppress talk of the idea has failed and even very mainstream center left publications have been talking about it as a not crazy idea.

Interesting article! Thanks for linking.

I've heard these comparisons, and as I've mentioned before I'm extremely bullish on the social contagion hypothesis for the majority of mental illness cases. It's an especially pernicious problem because once an illness becomes too 'saturated' like anorexia has been, the cultural cachet of the diagnoses plummets and the fad moves on. All that's left is hordes of people with broken lives and nothing to show for it.

I'm convinced that the modern world's turn away from religion is the main culprit here. That being said, I've been an agnostic for most of my life, so I don't think anyone is necessarily to blame when it comes to turning our backs on old religions. Unfortunately it's just extremely difficult to reconcile modern scientific knowledge with old religious worldviews. I think what many religious people, especially on this forum, miss is that for many agnostics or athiests it's not that they don't want to believe, rather that they find it practically impossible to believe in a religion which demands they lay down the rules of science and empiricism.

I'm convinced that the modern world's turn away from religion is the main culprit here.

It's the turn to a religion: not only has the basic premodern faith of Christianity - which would have checked this as a matter of course - been destroyed the only thing that even vaguely seems to have filled the niche is a brand of anti-science (ironically) blank-slateist view that is inherently in tension with human nature.

That's sort of the underlying tenet that makes any of this even vaguely acceptable.

I’m a bit confused here. You’re saying the blank slate view makes social contagion acceptable?

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It makes these social contagions more viable.

Unfortunately it's just extremely difficult to reconcile modern scientific knowledge with old religious worldviews. I think what many religious people, especially on this forum, miss is that for many agnostics or athiests it's not that they don't want to believe, rather that they find it practically impossible to believe in a religion which demands they lay down the rules of science and empiricism.

Only because of an implicit scientism that is pervasive in our society, which is particularly popular among liberal atheistic/agnostic types. I can't speak for every religion but the Catholic Church believes that there is no conflict between (Catholic Christian) religion and science, a belief I share.

The issue with this scientism is really quite obvious when you ask a straight-forward question: is all knowledge (or all truths) discernable via science or the scientific method? The answer to this question to me is clearly no, and that some truths (e.g. moral truths) cannot be discerned through science, and this enters the realm of philosophy and ultimately religion or faith. Many a philosopher has attempted derive moral truths through scientific/materialist means (including atheist star Sam Harris, if we want to call him a philosopher), but these projects inevitably end up as failures trying to square the circle. The alternative is moral nihilism and a completely materialist outlook, but very few atheists seem to actually want to bite that bullet.

Many philosophers have identified religion has giving rise to science in the first place. Because at the most basic, fundamental level, believe in natural science assumes a priori that that reality is ordered and knowable, a proposition one must take on faith.

I do have sympathy for the view that "it's not that they don't want to believe, rather that they find it practically impossible to believe in a religion which demands they lay down the rules of science and empiricism" because after all, it is the "gift of faith". You can reason your way so far, but the grace of belief isn't attainable by mere reason.

So sincere agnostics/atheists who go "I would like to believe but I can't" have my respect. It's the sneering jeering "religion R dumb and U R dumb" types who deserve the kicking (metaphorical, before anybody starts gasping in horror that I am advocating physical violence against unbelievers in my tyrannical Spanish Inquisition heretic burning Catholic rage).

I also have sympathy for that view, and it's refreshing to see the discussion around religion evolve from 'religion is stupid and holding us back from rational utopia' to 'religion does have some real social utility'. However, it's hard for me to take this claim of wanting to believe seriously from some people who make this claim when I see a dismissal of all metaphysics out of hand from those same people, from what I believe is not from a serious consideration of metaphysics but a reflexive dismissal of anything that isn't materialist (scientism).

At the same time, I see a lot of what I'll perhaps uncharitably describe as 'playing' at atheism. That is, a refusal to engage with the actual consequences or logic conclusion of atheism, as outlined by philosophers like Nietzsche and Sartre - perhaps because the conclusion is so undesirable. Instead, we see this glossy and superficial atheism professed by the New Atheists, whose critics I think quite rightly point out are attacking Christianity while relying on an underlying implicit Christian morality in practice. They profess a rationalistic/scientific approach to moral issues which I think is a fool's errand - the scientism I was criticising in my original post.

Because at the most basic, fundamental level, believe in natural science assumes a priori that that reality is ordered and knowable, a proposition one must take on faith.

Here's where the empiricist shrugs and says "I keep observing an ordered and knowable universe. Until that changes I'm accepting it as tentatively correct."

Also the word "faith" is so often tortured to accuse atheists of being faithful.

It's amusing. If one calls it "faith", atheists complain that you're trying to call them faithful. If one calls it axiomatic thinking, atheist's complain that your trying to whitewash irrationality.

Either way, accepting that a thing can't be proven and asserting it as true anyway is an unavoidable part of of the reasoning process. No one actually builds their entire logical understanding from personally-verified first principles.

I'm not saying you or Lackluster are doing it, but the word "faith" is much abused by some people to make a rhetorical attack on atheists. I've seen too much "Oh yeah, well, you atheists are the actually faithful people".

And to address Lackluster's point more directly: pointing out that people have "faith" in external reality existing isn't a very impressive point. Unless this discussion is actually about Descartes' demon, I'm going to roll my eyes about the great "faith" that atheists have about the material world actually existing.

The point of my original post is not to 'attack' atheists, but rather quite the opposite, rather to reconcile belief in science and belief in religion (or belief in God in the general sense). I only 'attack' atheists insofar as I am arguing against scientism which atheists may or may not believe in. Even then, 'attacking' is a pretty uncharitable description of arguing against something.

I think part of the rhetorical divide is that atheists implicitly think that 'faith' is a dirty word. I don't have such a view of the word or meaning behind faith. When I use the word 'faith' here, I'm being quite sincere.

You're also skipping a step with your stand-in empiricist - the empiricist has to first believe it is possible to observe the ordered and knowable universe in first place, and the observations he's make necessary correspond to an objective reality and not, say, it's all in his head to be a bit facetious. This axiomatic foundation is completely foundational religious thought (i.e. a belief in God), and one might argue tends to believe or even necessarily leads to belief in God. This is what Christians mean by God being Logos and God's Logos - that there is an inherent order/structure to the universe and this structure is discernable by Reason (which is one of the possible ways of translating of Logos along with Word). God is identified with this inherent (divine) structure of the universe.

Someone could write a paragraph dropping as many Sanskrit words as you did Greek words in defense of their position and I would be no more moved.

Someone could drop as many Taoist (or is it Daoist?) words and I would be even less moved.

All the Greek words I dropped being Logos, and... all the other ones?

Even if I had "dropped" a bunch of Greek words, how is this a rebuttal? Greek terminology is extremely commonly used in Western philosophy in general and a basic Greek vocabulary is useful for anyone wanting to engage with it.

Only because of an implicit scientism that is pervasive in our society, which is particularly popular among liberal atheistic/agnostic types. I can't speak for every religion but the Catholic Church believes that there is no conflict between (Catholic Christian) religion and science, a belief I share.

All very well and good for the Catholic Church to believe that (what else are they gonna do?). But that is a theological tenet, not fact, that many people find difficult to accept, for many real reasons.

I'll not get into Christianity because...well, there's significant differences. But, as a former Muslim, we're just kinda hemmed-in on certain matters.

Modern Muslims can now call it "scientism", but it's pretty clear historically that scholars believed a lot of these things (the Qur'an itself attacks those who say it only repeats "tales of the ancients"*) that science now "debunks". Apologists love to say that "the Qur'an is not a science book" - but you can't combine it being the divine speech of God, with it explicitly saying that it describes natural phenomenon as signs for the willing and also call scientism when it turns out to be wrong about the moon or mountains being pegs.

The "subtraction theory" that Charles Taylor tries to debunk (aka secular society just kept removing things we assumed to be proof of religion and replacing its value) may be overly simplistic (you are right that a lot of this was actually driven by people who thought we could know God's ordered creation and with a belief in progress rather than cyclical time) but the tension isn't easily dissolved. Like, just as naive observers we should assume premodern religions clash with modernity no?

* Which removes an important avenue of escape liberal Christians have

All very well and good for the Catholic Church to believe that (what else are they gonna do?).

Become Protestants? Which was the whole point of a little debate back in the day 😁

I’m an atheist and consider myself a moral relativist, which is to me is quite distinct from being a moral nihilist. Morality, to me, is a subjective human construct but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist; it exists in that same sphere as concepts, ideas and beliefs. It’s based on axioms which are essentially arbitrary; the only thing you can do is point out logical contradictions ensuing from them. In that manner, it’s quite similar to maths, which also don’t materially exist but certainly can be studied.

I find the very concept that morality could ever be objective to be logically incoherent; whatever moral “truth” you come up with, I can immediately just invent another worldview that contradicts it due to having different axioms. Even if God existed, I don’t see why I couldn’t disagree with his morality. The fact that he created me or the universe doesn’t grant him any philosophical authority any more than my parents, and being omnipotent just makes him a cosmic dictator with the power to punish me if I stray from his own personal beliefs.

I think the idea of objective morality might be coherent. There may not be such a thing in practice, or it may not meaningfully distinguish human moral systems, but if it were revealed somehow that there exist logically watertight rules by which our object-level beliefs can correctly unfold into preferences, having something to do with what a preference means, then there'd be a way to say that some preferences are objectively wrong, in the sense that a person could not have legitimately arrived at them and is just spouting confused nonsense that conflicts with his own ultimate priorities (which would presumably be shared between agents, because there is only one objective reality to have beliefs about). As you say, a given moral system can be logically incoherent; this just takes it to another level.

Source: getting high

Right. Did you change your mind about this?

I actually agree both with Greeks and with woke anthropologists that morality does not exist and does not differ from conventional etiquette in some substantial objective sense. The belief that it does is obviously downstream from tenets of (Christian) religion, which insists on there being some supernatural authority that informs one's conscience in a way that's qualitatively superior to mere interiorization of customs. Source.

This isn’t a gotcha, let’s not squabble.

No. There is no contradiction. «Objective morality» might be a logically coherent idea/concept (I actually think it is, but that can plausibly be due to my lacking intelligence). I still believe it's not a thing that factually exists in our Universe; and even if it does, it could not be satisfactorily established.

OK. But then when people talk of objective morality, you should treat it as that attempt at coherence. Because in practice, denial of objective morality is used to dismiss every morality out of hand as equally worthless as any other moral system. Much like the denial of objective reality dismisses every epistemology (‘ways of knowing’) as equally worthless.

«Logically coherent» is still a rather weak ontological status. People may try whatever, I just don't think they can succeed, and they certainly cannot positively convince each other (me included) that they have.

in practice, denial of objective morality is used to dismiss every morality out of hand as equally worthless as any other moral system

Denial of objective morality is objectively correct and a prerequisite for any non-deluded attempt at negotiating social norms. It is exactly because there is a single shared objective reality (presumably) that we can discuss our distinct interests in common terms, instead of immediately concluding that the only solution to disagreement is brainwashing or genocide.

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Furthermore, if you are right about morality [being subjective] but wrong about God [existing] as in the hypothetical you've posed, you have no justification to challenge this, on your own view. God would just be following his own morality, just as real as yours, in which he gets to punish you for infractions of his personal morality. You can say "I don't like it!" but that's not a sufficient challenge -- even "people liking things being good" or "people's preferences being valuable" are moral stances that require moral justification. Maybe they're just irrelevant -- who's to say?

I remember when I reached this salient and powerful realization about morality in my own theological musings. It features heavily in my own estimations of morality.

I don’t see the problem. Yes morality is relative. Yes my moral values are not materially truer than yours, so what? My morals are my morals, and they are correct, for me. I will act accordingly. I see no reason for this to collapse into nihilism.

“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”

Does Might make Right? Is Justice as simple as "Whatever the strong impose on the weak"?

I don't think that is what I said but I am trying to follow your point. morality is an evolved shared thing. It often stops the strong from imposing on the weak. Again, I don't see why that requires it to be objective. It is a cooperative custom.

Regardless of what justice is the strong will impose on the weak. Different cultures will evolve different customs to limit that. Limiting the strong being cruel to the weak seems good to me and also seems to be selected for in the evolution of morality. I think it is a blessing that that tends to happen.

might is not the only factor, culture and argument can affect things certainly, but maybe in this context you would see that as might too. People who can make convincing arguments or manipulate their peers will impose on those who can't

The first post in this chain said that morality is subjective not objective. Which I agree with. morality is crucial but not a material fact. It is based on inherited axioms that are evolved.

The response to that post that I replied to argued that that position leads inexorably to nihilism. Which I disagree with. I believe I can have a substantial moral position while recognizing that it is relative. The post I replied to said:

I think moral relativism collapses into nihilism -- or, if we don't like that word, moral non-realism -- because a principal purpose of ethics is to provide a means of challenging the whims of the powerful with an objective framework, or else justifying their power. If you believe everyone can just make up their own morality and it's exactly as real as yours, you have no means for challenging any perceived mistreatment, or even waging any culture war. To put it bluntly, you have no justification for condemning the Holocaust, because the Nazis were just following their own morality in which the Jews were vermin polluting the land of the volk and that meant they got to kill them. The primary purpose of morality ceases to exist in a puff of logic. That, to me, is a non-real morality.

I don't see why morality can't do the things he wants it to do while being relative.

If I think that the Nazis are bad, which of course I do, I can fight them. Recognizing that my morals are not materially more true than their's doesn't stop me.

If I think that the Nazis are bad, which of course I do, I can fight them. Recognizing that my morals are not materially more true than their's doesn't stop me.

What, then, do you mean by "bad"? Like, if you were to say to another human, let's call her Alice, that you thought the Nazis are bad, what does that entail? Does it mean that you have a reason, which you think should be convincing to Alice, to believe that... oh, I don't know, that their morals are materially less true than yours? Are you just merely expressing some feature of your personal morals, completely isolated from anything else in the universe? Like, what's going on here?

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Justice is what keeps a social group cohesive instead of turning on each other. A “weaker” tribe with a functioning social system can often outlast a stronger one that tears itself apart due to power struggles and revenge over perceived slights.

But different societies absolutely have different conceptions of justice, how do you know yours is the objective truth? Many things you do, people from other nations or time periods would find absolutely abhorrent, and vice versa.

The world is moving closer and closer to a monoculture, of which societal differences are obliterated from the twin forces of capitalism and social media. What justice would such a society have? It would be permanent and immutable, and if you dislike it even in the smallest part it will be imposed upon you.

The relativist stance is descriptive of a reality that is fast disappearing. Current academics feel no shame of imposing their morality on the distant past. It is post-modernist babble that is completely unhelpful to the vital question of what is right and good.

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In that manner, it’s quite similar to maths, which also don’t materially exist but certainly can be studied.

Isn't math usually seen as objective - i.e. its truth or falseness is mind-independent? After all, we use it to come up with falsifiable theories of how the universe works. In fact, one line of argument for theism is that math is unreasonably useful here.

In fact, one line of argument for theism is that math is unreasonably useful here.

Um, what? It really is "heads I win, tails you lose" with theism, isn't it? I guarantee no ancient theologian was saying "I sure hope that all of Creation, including our own biology and brains, turns out to be describable by simple mathematical rules; that would REALLY cement my belief in God, unlike all this ineffability nonsense."

It's a hard problem from all possible directions, that people have been grappling with since before recorded history. There's going to be a pretty wide diversity of answers.

There's two catches with that. The first is that "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." (Albert Einstein)

Witness his special relativity, wherein 2 apples plus 2 apples might still be 4 apples but 2 m/s plus 2 m/s turns out to only be 3.9999 (and another dozen or so 9s, admittedly) m/s.

So we can come up with conceptual universes of axioms and prove all sorts of interesting things about them, but we can never be totally sure how completely any of them are really relevant to the actual universe we're in, rather than just amusing games. The fact that we've invented so many pure amusing games that turned out to be good descriptions of the building blocks of reality makes this a surprisingly tricky question.

The second is Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems. Any reasonable (able to handle basic arithmetic, not obviously inconsistent) system of foundational axioms for mathematics is inadequate to prove all statements which are true in that system, and is also unable to prove its own consistency. We can sometimes use a more complex system to prove the consistency of a less complex system, but then at that point it's turtles all the way down.

In fact, one line of argument for theism is that math is unreasonably useful here.

There are a lot of ways to interpret the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. To some extent the discovery of how much complexity can be derived from ridiculously simple rules hints at possible alternatives to theism, though I'm not exactly all on board the Tegmark train myself.

I've always been taken by Godel's theorem's as it really cuts us down to size. But if I'm understanding it properly, it doesn't preclude the idea of a proof itself from a series of other proofs, just we can't prove a system of them all lining up together on the same axiom base. But that's not quite the same as having an ambivalent confusion about everything in mathematics...?

These days I like Iain Mcgilchrist's left-brain, right-brain algorithmic vs gestalt brain thing. A lot of our thinking and limitations are because we mistake the left-brain view of the world for reality. The key scientific insights of the 20th century, Godel, quantum physics, relativity and, yes, postmodernism are all pointing us to somewhere else...

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Personally, I've seen too many cases where bizarre mathematical constructs we thought we just made up have been incredibly useful in describing natural phenomena (somehow complex numbers are useful in physics??) to say that's the case.

IIRC from my physics class in college a long time ago, this isn't even a "somehow." It's that complex numbers were formulated and used because they were useful in physics, specifically for modeling behaviors of real-world objects, not some obscure electromagnetism effects happening in a circuit or whatever. I wish I could remember the details and/or how apocryphal the story was, but it's certainly one of the less intuitive things that square-roots of negative numbers are so useful in real-world physics, looking at math from the outside.

This isn't true. They were originally developed to solve equations. The physics applications came much later

Nah; the whole reason imaginary numbers are called "imaginary" is that they were first used in formal, temporary, intermediate results in algorithms for calculating the "real" cubic/quartic polynomial roots that people care about. That was like 1600. I think Euler's formula a century later was when engineers and physicists first really started treating complex numbers as things of non-temporary interest, and quantum mechanics was when complex numbers started to feel more "real" than real ones.

I endorse this wholeheartedly, how exactly does one assess the objectivity of a moral maxim? If the heavens opened up and the Abrahamic God handed us a new set of commandments, where does his authority to set objectivity lie?

Personally, I'm a moral relativist, but I have no compunctions about being a moral chauvinist and thinking my set of values are superior and ought to be promulgated. Any disagreeing is welcome to do the same, neither of us can stop each other after all.

Many philosophers have identified religion has giving rise to science in the first place. Because at the most basic, fundamental level, believe in natural science assumes a priori that that reality is ordered and knowable, a proposition one must take on faith.

As with all sorts of similar solipsistic arguments, my response is this: either both me and you are actual minds existing in an external reality where induction works, or the very concept of communication is nonsense. So you can presume that every piece of communication ever starts with that assumption and go from there.

I think that was his point, we must believe there is order to the universe otherwise we should just do random shit for no reason, and religion was mankind's first attempt to discern that order, facilitating the advent of science when we discovered religion's limitations.

I agree with this angle. I think the stance of moral relativism is a performative contradiction -as soon as we have an 'other' we have to reckon with a non-relativist morality. I think morality gets mixed in with the locus of care where we apply it. Humans are very good at shifting this boundary and there are different solutions to scaling morality across different groups. Some cultures favour family, tribe over all else, but this is different from moral relativity.

Motte: science doesn't explain everything so there could be something like a God

Bailey: science doesn't explain everything so Bible is fact

Yeah this is my view to a T. It’s sad because I would love the comfort of unshakeable faith in a Christian or other type of God, but I can’t seem to take the leap away from facts required.

It's even more difficult to reconcile modern scientific knowledge with new (semi? pseudo?)-religious worldviews, and so it's the science that goes out the window instead! Cycles upon cycles.

As someone who prides themselves on their internal consistency, you'll find me being deeply uncool with both.

I think you can reconcile any religion with modern science, but I also think you are going to have some serious work to do.

For example, for christianity, the pain points would be:

  • original sin/early genesis and evolution
  • soul and thermodynamics/neurology
  • lack of evidence for angels and demons compared to the medieval way of conceiving them, demonic possessions especially
  • angelology being largely based on a forgery (de coelesti hierarchia)
  • transubstantiation/consubstantiation and atomism
  • lack of evidence for some of jesus miracles
  • the lack of contemporary miracles (or poor evidence for them) compared to biblical times some you can discard as medieval superstitions that don't really matter (even ardently religious people don't believe them anymore), others not so much. You have to have an explanation for original sin, I think.

Other religions would have different pain points.

Somewhere along the way, yes, a religion implies some unmoved mover (or a pantheon of them?).

Ironically I think the unmoved mover argument is very hard to reconcile with modern science, however it's more of a christian thing and even there it doesn't really matter.

angelology being largely based on a forgery (de coelesti hierarchia)

Okay, I'm presuming you mean Pseudo-Dionysius here, lemme go check:

Yup, you do. It's not a forgery, it's a misattribution. We're getting into the weeds here, as the content of the work is distinct from the authorship. If someone pretended to be Isaac Newton, but the book they wrote was investigated and found to be correct in the mathematics, is that a discrediting forgery for the work? You are saying that "the guy lied about who he was, so what he wrote must be taken as wrong" but it's not that clear.

It was a convention to use recognised authorities to back up your claims, and to write "in the style of" or even outright claiming to be that authority. There was even in early times controversy over who the true author was, and whether you accepted it or not came down to did it cohere with your theology.

Now, if there is nothing in the work which contradicts established theology, then we're in the "fake Isaac Newton" realm: does the genuine work stand on its own, or do we reject it even if it is correct, because the author lied about who he is?

If it's contradictory, then regardless of who wrote it, we can reject it.

St Thomas Aquinas and others wrote on the nature of angels, and he certainly wasn't a forgery, so then it comes down to: what is our view of angels?

(If they were instead described as sufficiently advanced aliens or the Simulators as in the simulation argument, I think people would be more inclined to believe in them, even as a thought experiment, than as an explicitly religious existence).

Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica, I.108) follows the Hierarchia (6.7) in dividing the angels into three hierarchies each of which contains three orders, based on their proximity to God, corresponding to the nine orders of angels recognized by Pope Gregory I.

Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; Dominations, Virtues, and Powers; Principalities, Archangels, and Angels.

You even get this recognised in Dante, as he describes the orders of angels where he goes with Pseudo-Dionysius rather than Pope Gregory, because it fits in better with his theological schema for the Divine Comedy:

The order of the angelic hierarchies adopted in the Commedia is (in descending enumeration) Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, Angels. This is the same as that found in the work of Dionysius, but different from that found in the work of Gregory the Great. In his works Gregory had given two different orderings. The one Dante is referring to is most probably the following (in descending enumeration): Seraphim, Cherubim, Powers, Principalities, Virtues, Dominations, Thrones, Archangels, Angels. This is the same ordering the Dante had followed in the Convivio referred to in Paradiso VIII, 34–39. As you can see, a number of different orders of angels change place in the two different orderings. But, as you've seen in previous sections, it is to the changing position of the Thrones that, throughout the Paradiso, Dante draws most attention.

Okay, what you can do is throw out all the theories of the angels if you decide "it's all forgery", but you cannot from that reject the existence of angels, since they are mentioned in the Scriptures. We can admit we're wrong in our ideas about them, but we cannot then go on to say "therefore angels don't exist".

I think the comparison with Newton, assuming you are referring to Newton's works in physics and optics, is unwarranted because him and Pseudo-dyonisius stand on opposite sides of an epistemological divide. Pre modern intellectual work was primarily about interpreting and finding truth within a canon of works of authors in the antiquity. We don't care who wrote Newton's Principia because they stand on the strength of their argument and of empirical evidence. You can't say the same thing about De Coelesti Hierarchia because it doesn't make any argument it just states some facts that have been revealed to the author through divine revelation.

When all of your arguments are appeals to authority, who the author is becomes extermely important. Are you really going to believe some anonymous guy that tells you they received divine revelation when they are also pretending to be a mythical character that lived 500 years earlier?

lack of evidence for some of jesus miracles

Some? If we go even by apologists like Habermas there are only a handful of "minimal facts" about Jesus's life at all in post-enlightenment Biblical scholarship.

Think about it from the perspective of someone who is already religious: you are already prepared to believe on faith that the gospels are a historical account. Many miracles would have only a few witnesses, so it is not surprising that they would not be recorded by historians (there probably were many false accounts of miracolous healers at the time and it would get lost among the fakes). But some of them are so huge and public that they couldn't escape notice.

As far as I am concerned I only believe (1) and partially (6) of that list with any certainty. There's too much conjecture in this part of history, if this standard of proof was applied uniformly we would believe in the existence of the philosopher stone too.

Think about it from the perspective of someone who is already religious: you are already prepared to believe on faith that the gospels are a historical account.

Well, we're talking about reconciling with modernity so we should consider just what problems modernity is throwing up. If the claim is just that someone who refuses to believe in them through sheer force of will, fair enough I guess. I thought the point was to unify modernity and religion not just ignore the former.

And one of the problems modernity poses is precisely to the unity or reliability of Scripture. It actually strikes me as one of the bigger ones: plenty of books were entered into the canon because of their alleged authors. If we now prove the authors almost certainly didn't write it and we can glean minimal information, a Christian can say "well, God inspired us to canonize that book" anyway, but it seems way more novel and thus, a sign of special pleading.

Given the claims in various books of the New Testament, there really should be independent historical verification of some of these events, if they happened at all.

Matthew 27:51-53 comes to mind. Astounding mass miracles seen by many according to the Bible. Strangely lacking any mention outside of that text which was written decades later by an anonymous author.

Strangely lacking any mention outside of that text which was written decades later by an anonymous author.

Yeah, all these so-called 'historians' claiming this guy named Julius Caesar existed and went around conquering other countries. The Chinese and South American civilisations never mention a word about him, just these "Europeans"! Fishy, that!

If Romans at the time also lacked any mention of his great acts outside of a single anonymous non-contemporaneous source then we'd be damned skeptical. Lack of ancient South American mention is obviously not relevant.

Astounding mass miracles viewed by many in the region, such as described in Matthew 27:51-53 as an off the top of my head example, should have locals mentioning it. Not the ancient Chinese of course, but the people in that region supposedly experiencing mass miracles.

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