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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   26187 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 26, 2024

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I mean, my memory is that the slippery slope people were not talking about transgenderism back then, they were talking about bestiality and pedophilia becoming accepted and mainstream. Same as they are now, same as they always are.

There's a difference between an advance prediction of 'X is a slippery slope that will lead specifically to Y', and a retroactive claim that 'X was the start of a slippery slope that has led us to current thing Z'.

You can make up a retroactive narrative about anything leading to anything, once you've observed them both.

But the religious people of the time didn't actually predict the things that have actually happened since then - or if they did, those predictions were tossed out alongside a barrage of thousands of other predictions that failed - and therefore, they are not 'vindicated' and don't get any credibility from it.

You're correct that the specific predictions didn't pan out as stated in the 90s and 00s. To cut them a little slack, nobody really anticipated a hot debate about the definition of 'man' vs 'woman' or the 'gender spectrum' to enter the fray.

However, that the Left enabled that kind of blindsiding has shown me that they can't be trusted to not flip the board and mealmouth things that I find rather horrid, like puberty blockers. I have to say that my trust for the Left to stay within reasonable lines has done a complete 180 on this topic, and I wonder if the 'kink wing' of the party is just waiting for more favorable conditions to finally push through. And they could very well do so even if the vast majority of their compatriots don't like it. We have not slid to the specific point that moral conservativism predicted, but I don't want to be distracted from the fact that a slide did occur, even if indirectly.

My suspicion is you will ultimately be found correct. There won't be a mass normalization of beastiality and pedophilia. But that's predicated on my faith that surely people don't change that quickly, and I don't know how I justify that. So personally, I'm going to extend the deadline to 2040 and see where we stand after swimming in AI futa cocks for a decade or two.

And the irresolvable difference here is just that I know a lot of trans people and think that allowing them to transition has been better for them and their lives than not allowing that, so I don't see anything unreasonable there.

I expect pedophilia and bestiality not to get normalized because kids and animals don't actually want to have sex with you, there's an actual victim there. I expect that the future will normalize a lot of things I find weird or upsetting but which don't actually harm anyone on net, which is how I see the trans movement.

We probably can't reconcile our predictions before reconciling that disagreement-in-fact.

I expect pedophilia and bestiality not to get normalized because kids and animals don't actually want to have sex with you, there's an actual victim there

They can't consent to sex. Whatever consent to sex is (not an easy concept to analyse, to put it mildly) it's not the same thing as not wanting to have sex. I definitely wanted to have sex when I was 11 (and pre-pubescent). A cat in heat wants some sexual activity and doesn't particularly care with what. The problem is that children and animals can't engage in consensual sex, whether they want to or not, any more than they can make a mature decision about whether to become addicted to heroin.

They can't consent to sex. Whatever consent to sex is (not an easy concept to analyse, to put it mildly) ... The problem is that children and animals can't engage in consensual sex, whether they want to or not, any more than they can make a mature decision about whether to become addicted to heroin.

This is more than just not an easy concept to analyse. From my comment here a while ago:

When it comes to the question of whether children can consent to sexual relations, the dominant position is that it is just trivial that they cannot. I mean, sure, they can consent to playing tennis just fine, but sex is completely and totally different. Why? I've steeped myself in the academic philosophy literature on this topic, and while it's a thousand times better than the responses you'll get from regular Joe, it still comes in seriously lacking in my mind.

Westen doesn't take a super strong position on the topic, but likely grounds it in what he calls the 'knowledge prong' of what counts as valid consent. A person needs to have sufficient knowledge of... something... related to what sex is, what it means, what the consequences could be, the cultural context... I'm not exactly sure what. I don't think he did the best job of really digging in to details here. This is perhaps the most fruitful line of inquiry for future academic work for those who want to salvage a consent-only sexual ethic, but right now it's seriously lacking. Any work will definitely need to distinguish from tennis, because I see kids out learning tennis at our local courts somewhat regularly, and they can hardly be said to understand the risks/cultural context/etc. of tennis any more than could be said for sex.

Wertheimer, on the other hand, doesn't even attempt a theoretical explanation for why children cannot consent. Instead, he views it as simply an empirical question of whether, in a particular society, children tend to be, on net, harmed by sex. The opinion piece writes:

[A]s categories, we experience [race and gender identity] in large part through the perceptions that others have of us, based largely on our outward appearances.

A disciple of Wertheimer might say that a large part of how children perceive sex, and whether they perceive it as harmful or not, may depend on the perceptions others have of it.

Of course, either of these approaches opens up all sorts of cultural engineering possibilities. If we team up the "sex is like tennis" folks with the "comprehensive sex education as early as possible" folks, it's easy to imagine how society could change to one where children learn the requisite knowledge and are not, on net, harmed by the sex that they do consent to. Some folks might cheer on this result, saying that society would be immeasurably improved to the point that it unlocks this new world of possible good things... but the "it is trivially true that children cannot possibly consent to sex" crowd would certainly disagree.

Your comparison to "mak[ing] a mature decision about whether to become addicted to heroin" is definitely somewhat relevant here, if you read the full linked comment. People think that there's something "more" and "different" about sex and heroin and things like that compared to "normal" things that children can definitely, totally consent to. But the theory here is just completely whack and not at all up to the challenge of explaining why. You can simply ask yourself, "Why can't children consent to sex?" When you do so, you might go down the same road I went down; you might read the same major works by professional philosophers that I read. But I really don't think you'll get a good theoretical answer. It's just sort of an axiom that is held by some. To others, it's just the dogmatic mantra that they were forced to repeat in order to help justify fighting the X-ophobes. But when the same people who convinced you to subscribe to a consent-only sexual ethic and who swear that the thing we need most is early comprehensive sex education to help children understand the sexual choices that they're allowed to make come calling, they're going to ask, "Why can't children consent?" If you don't have a better answer than the professional philosophers who are making the best case possible for a consent-only sexual ethic, you're going to find out that you're an X-ophobe. You're going to get stared at like you're an alien for making outdated assumptions about people. For Sagan's sake, everyone knows that kids are capable enough to choose their gender, have parts of their body hacked off, and keep it all secret from their parents! Of course they're capable of deciding to have a little fun with some friction on the bits.

But when the same people who convinced you to subscribe to a consent-only sexual ethic

How are you using the word "you" here?

I have never subscribed to a consent-only sexual ethic.

Ah, well, then I'm sure you have some other, non-consent reason why children can't have sex. That's fair enough, but it's a bit surprising considering your comment that I responded to. There, it seemed like the pertinent question (which is the only question to the consent-only folks) was about consent, which still leaves open the question, "Why not?"

EDIT: To add one little remark, consent-only is the current dogmatic position, and you may already be an X-ophobe if you don't ascribe to a consent-only sexual ethic.

Ah, well, then I'm sure you have some other, non-consent reason why children can't have sex. That's fair enough, but it's a bit surprising considering your comment that I responded to. There, it seemed like the pertinent question (which is the only question to the consent-only folks) was about consent

Your confusion seems to be because you are missing the distinction between "inability to consent is a sufficient reason for children not to have sex" with "lack of consent is a necessary condition for sex to be wrong." It may help you to do some work on pen-and-paper using Venn diagrams: for example, you see how "All non-consensual sex is wrong sex" is logically distinct from "All wrong sex is non-consensual sex."

Similarly, that consent is one pertinent question in sexual ethics doesn't imply that it's the only question.

I also suspect that even many people who sometimes say, "As long as it's consensual, it's fine," actually make exceptions for things like "power dynamics" and "developing bad habits," but I'm not interested in rationally reconstructing their views.

Your confusion seems to be because you are missing the distinction between "inability to consent is a sufficient reason for children not to have sex" with "lack of consent is a necessary condition for sex to be wrong."

Not at all. I understand this distinction perfectly well. Nevertheless, you said:

They can't consent to sex. Whatever consent to sex is (not an easy concept to analyse, to put it mildly) ... The problem is that children and animals can't engage in consensual sex, whether they want to or not, any more than they can make a mature decision about whether to become addicted to heroin.

I'm asking you why this is. Your confusion seems to be that you can't bring yourself to answer the question at hand.

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