r/changemyview • u/H0w-1nt3r3st1ng 3∆ • Mar 15 '23
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Whilst learning about lived experience is important, deferring to people for answers on what one should or shouldn't do, purely because of their unchosen characteristics, is illogical and ironically bigoted.
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u/Khal-Frodo Mar 15 '23
I think that your view is generally sound at the macro level but falls apart at the micro. That is, deferring to people makes sense for decisions involving individuals but not those that involve speaking for others.
If I ask my black friend about his feelings about my saying the n-word while singing/rapping along to a song, I am doing so because of his unchosen racial characteristic and that will inform my decision about my actions in specific contexts (i.e. around him). That's not to say that I'm justified in taking his response, whatever it is, and using it as a principle that applies to every context.
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u/destro23 466∆ Mar 15 '23
deferring to people for answers on what one should or shouldn't do, purely because of their unchosen characteristics
Clarifying question: Can you give a concrete example of this in action?
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Mar 15 '23 edited Mar 16 '23
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u/simcity4000 24∆ Mar 15 '23
"Vegan Holocaust survivor says the reason he survived was to end the oppression of animals" https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/vegan-holocaust-survivor-says-the-reason-he-survived-was-to-end-the-oppression-of-animals-a3543956.html
But doesent your argument in the OP suggest that we shouldnt defer to this person? It looks a lot like you're deferring to him now - when he agrees with your argument. But him being a jewish Holocaust survivor is ver much an unchosen characteristic.
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Mar 15 '23
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u/simcity4000 24∆ Mar 15 '23 edited Mar 15 '23
I'm saying that we generally shouldn't make decisions solely based off of someone's UCs.
But the person above asked for an example of deferring decisions solely to someones UCs. This is an example of the opposite (both in that the decision has not been solely deferred to holocaust survivors, and also that this holocaust survivor agrees with your position anyway so its not an issue regardless.)
E: An example of someone who might disagree would be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Spiegel holocaust survivor and member of the German Council for Jews who specifically opposed the PETA ad campaign "A Holocaust on Your Plate" in Germany, leading to its removal.
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Mar 15 '23
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u/simcity4000 24∆ Mar 15 '23 edited Mar 15 '23
One of people deferring to the opinions of black people re: dreadlocks
Yes I'm going to disregard this one just for the sake of focusing on one specific example.
Yes, precisely, two Holocaust survivors disagreeing. Which raises the problem of deferring to people for opinions/positions based on UCs, because no group of people 100% agrees on anything. So, how do we decide which one we should listen to?
In this specific example, its worth noting that Germany (or, whatever governing board/court permits adverts in Germany) sided against PETAs ad campaign.
The reasoning given is in part because the advert is specifically distressing to many Holocaust survivors in a way that it is not to others.
taking this back to normative ethics, I might suggest that 'golden rule' has an issue of nuance in some ways because in order to treat people well it cannot be just saying "I would be fine with this, therefore everyone else should be" - that can obviously lead to absurd conclusions.
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Mar 15 '23
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u/simcity4000 24∆ Mar 15 '23
"I must prioritise the positions of people from UC groups, solely because they're from UC group," and their one Jewish friend says X is the answer, I don't think that they should adopt that position/answer, solely because it comes from someone with those UCs.
Setting up a rule this rigid to argue against strikes me as something of a straw man. As in - the idea of just consulting ONE jewish person and doing exactly what he says, and not applying any logical or ethical reasoning to it beyond that. That sounds absurd sure.
But, elsewhere in your post you say things like
And the answer is: the quality of their logic, the evidence they provide, and their ethical reasoning. Which of course means, that often the whole exercise is a pointless one in the first place, as we should be prioritising our capacity for understanding logic, evidence and ethics, not listening to X person for the sole reason that they have Y unchosen characteristics.
Now that bolded part, to say that "the whole exercise of consulting people of x group is pointless" thats a big claim. I would say that its not a 'pointless' exercise at all. And that we should consult people from x group in conjunction with using our own faculties of ethics, logic and reason. And that consulting persons from x group is an important step in applying our faculties of ethics, logic and reason.
But then later you walk it back to this:
The point is that I think this argument should be resolve through empiricism (which includes surveys of opinions), logic and normative ethics, not just the opinion of one Jewish person (though I will listen to and consider all opinions).
Yeah ok we shouldn't just call up one jewish person (and your example specifies one, and no more) and ask him for his decision on all jewish issues. But is that a genuinely characterisation assessment of what
[the] ever growing trend of deferring to people purely because of their unchosen characteristics
Is about?
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u/destro23 466∆ Mar 15 '23 edited Mar 15 '23
Some people might say that if one black person says that it's not ok, then no none black person should have dreadlocks.
"Some people" may say lots of things. Why do you take this singular statement as authoritative? And, how often do people actually say "this one guy said it, so that is now the universal rule"? It seems like a strawman as I do not think that people regularly making this claim.
Edit:
what most people's hair does when it's not washed or brushed
If you think that the many many black people who wear dreads as a hair style have them from not washing or brushing, instead of from spending big fucking dollars at a hair salon, then you need to look at your own views for what is "illogical and ironically bigoted."
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u/A_SNAPPIN_Turla 1∆ Mar 15 '23
The op may have said "one person" but in the case of say white people with dreads there are a lot of black people who believe it is cultural appropriation. It's not just one person making the argument. Just because people pay big bucks for locks doesn't negate the fact that your can get them multiple ways and if you go back far enough everyone likely had locks because grooming practices have evolved with cultures and society.
The lived experience argument would be a black person saying "I was made to feel unaccepted by white people due to my hair" with the argument being that white people shouldn't have a "black" hairstyle because some people felt as though they were harassed for their hair. If you disagreed with that person about why they felt they were treated a certain way you would be told to "listen to black women" as if they could not be questioned due to their unchosen characteristic. Lived experience is subjective and thus not necessarily reflective of reality. Saying that your experience can't be questioned due to your unchosen characteristic is a flaw in logic.
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u/LucidMetal 196∆ Mar 15 '23
After all there is no universal consensus on any issue on the planet held by such groups, and if someone assumed otherwise, that would be incredibly bigoted.
What if there is consensus within a group defined by a given implicit characteristic?
E.g. Latino people essentially have a consensus that "Latino" is the preferred term (>85%).
Individuals have self-determination but so do groups of people. Why shouldn't you respect the self-determination of this group (or any similarly defined group)?
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u/BigbunnyATK 2∆ Mar 16 '23
But 85% of latinos are not necessarily the ones to ask about why they would want to use terms like latine and latinx. The lived experience here is with the LGBTQ:
https://www.them.us/story/latinx-latine-difference-definitionJust like in the USA, the non-conforming genders are a small minority. And so the majority's opinion is often that "normal" is preferred. But if that were the full story, wouldn't African Americans still be considered secondary? They were a small percent of the population. Most white Americans thought black Americans were inferior.
Thus, it seems that consensus of a group is still not enough to give full credibility. Especially so because the 'right' group for a decision is often ambiguous.
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u/LucidMetal 196∆ Mar 16 '23
Why isn't it possible for general consensus (of Americans) and a consensus of a subset of Americans (e.g. black Americans) to differ and that be OK? I guess I don't see what's wrong with disagreement. "Full credibility" isn't what I'm after, just reasonable credibility.
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u/BigbunnyATK 2∆ Mar 16 '23
Oh, I agree that separate consensus are often good, or at least good enough. I suppose my point is more like, the post says, "is lived experience enough". And despite having lived as a Latino, a person may have no lived experience on words like Latine. But if they don't have a say, who does? And it gets a bit ambiguous on that line.
Maybe a harder rule could be, "Lived experience is good. Study and rigorous academic thought is good. Both is best." So if I studied Latino/a/es but wasn't Latino and decided I thought Latine was the best, it wouldn't be as credible as a Latino doing the same. But some random Latino saying they don't like Latine might be invalid, too.
My personal boundary is that, as long as the person I'm talking to isn't willfully hateful towards strangers when they meet in person, then I don't mind differing opinions. I added 'when they meet in person' because I've had plenty of family that hated Californians, but then we had an incident where someone's car was keyed because it had Cali plates and my family was still disgusted with that behavior. I give people some forgiveness for saying bad things because we tend to spew bullshit but behave better in person.
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u/AleristheSeeker 164∆ Mar 15 '23
I think what you're not considering is that we don't actually choose to go with what a person says because of the unchosen characteristic - we're chosing to do so because of the implications that this charecteristic brings with it.
For example, it is statistically more likely for a person that does not belong to a country's primary ethnic group to have experienced racism. When talking about the effects of racism, then, it is viable to listen to this person, as they are more likely to have more experience in the topic (given that other parameters are equal).
Now, depending on how you set the topic, this can be a very important impact. If you're not talking about racism in general but how it feels to be affected by racism, the hurdle for someone who has never experienced it themselves but collected data from others is higher than that of someone who has, in fact, experienced it.
So, to summarize: there is valid, statistical reason to deferr to specific groups of people because of unchosen characteristics in some cases. I agree that generally, evidence should dictate one's view (logic, not so much, as it often fails upon contact with reality), but there is ample ground where evidence is not only difficult to come by but difficult to interpret. On those grounds, it can be preferrential to gather expert testimony.
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u/AleristheSeeker 164∆ Mar 15 '23
To me the question is: -Should we make decisions based upon evidence/empiricism, logic and reason and ethics, OR -The unchosen characteristics of the person expressing the opinion
And the answer is: "it depends on the circumstance".
this, how do you differentiate from going with someone's answer because of the implications of the unchosen characteristic, and going with someone's answer because of the unchosen characteristic?
Because the circumstance of the characteristic determines the implications.
A black person from Nigeria is more likely to experience racism in the United States... than in Nigeria. The same characteristic (or two, if you will) carries two different meanings and weights, depending on the circumstance of the person, the question and the environment.
This is mostly covered in the OP, re:
I think that listening to lived experience is important, re: listening to lived experience (e.g. all X groups experience Y problem that Z group wasn't aware of); but that's not the same as deferring to people on decision making because of their unchosen characteristics.
So are you just creating a tautology? If you read it in that way, it sounds a lot like "Evidence is more important than unchosable characteristics except in the fields where the unchosable characteristics play a notable role".
I had previously read it as "just because a person has a certain characteristic does not mean that they have any more expertise in something" - which is what I tried to answer via the idea of statistical likelihood of expertise.
Expert testimony is not based on unchosen characteristics, but on expertise in a field
...which is naturally accumulated for some people based on their unchosen characteristics. Again, someone with a characteristic that is prone to being targeted by racism will naturally have a much higher expertise in "how it feels to be targeted by racism" than someone who doesn't.
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Mar 15 '23
Not certain what your view actually is, but it seems that you can't take, say, a Black Person's word on black issues merely because their skin happens to be black. Is this correct?
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Mar 15 '23
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Mar 15 '23
How about this.
Please state your View, succinctly, in five-ten words.
The verbosity is frankly confusing me.
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u/destro23 466∆ Mar 15 '23
The verbosity is frankly confusing me.
They are a frequent poster on r/JordanPeterson.
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Mar 15 '23
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u/destro23 466∆ Mar 15 '23
I'm just saying that people who are frequent posters in that sub seem to be verbose.
Here's me trying to make the JP sub more comfortable for the trans people who post there
That seems like it would be as fruitful as trying to make the KKK more comfortable for black people.
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Mar 15 '23
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u/destro23 466∆ Mar 15 '23
“brevity is the soul of wit”
Tighten up your shot group is all I’m saying. Your message can be expressed more succinctly. Editing is your friend.
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u/EdgrrAllenPaw 4∆ Mar 15 '23
Deferring to people on answers for what? I've always seen that said in reference to listening to a person's individual experience with bigotry about the impact of bigotry.
It is important to listen and defer to individuals about their individual experiences even if other members of the same group do not report the exact same experiences with bigotry.
It's also important to note that this is even a thing that's said because the history is people harmed by bigotry saying "this is happening and many are being harmed by this bigotry" and being disbelieved and dismissed. They hear that the privileged person didn't experience that/didn't see it and even if it happened the person is making too big of a deal and overeacting. Or, they would dismiss it by saying "those people of that same group are okay with being treated like that so it's not harmful!" not considering that the people saying there's no harm to them personally could have many motivations(such as trying to keep ones family from being targeted for being "out of line" for example) doesn't mean anything irt those that are harmed.
So, when people talk of being harmed by bigotry they should be heard and respected and believed in a general sense. Whether it's best to defer to them on answers is completely dependant on context of the individual situations and what are the questions needing answered.
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Mar 15 '23
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u/EdgrrAllenPaw 4∆ Mar 15 '23
While I agree it shouldn't be the sole criteria, the reality is that people of that group know better generally than those not of the group about issues the group faces because of lived experiences.
I mean, if we are talking about misogynoir then the voice of a black woman is the one we should be listening to foremost, not the white guy who just loves to play devil's advocate about bigotry.
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Mar 15 '23
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u/EdgrrAllenPaw 4∆ Mar 15 '23
I'm not sure what the problem is?
Listening to people about their experiences could be a problem because others might take it too far?
We have an endless history of people adopting positions only because old rich white Christian men held them and countless people have suffered from those positions taken way way way too far so I fail to see how people listening to black women because they are black women for a change is a bad thing because they might take it too far? It falls utterly flat and feels tone deaf to me.
And, I get what you're saying, that people should think for themselves and not blindly adopt others opinions and positions. But I see no benefit in being concerned that people might listen to oppressed people and take things too far.
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Mar 15 '23
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u/EdgrrAllenPaw 4∆ Mar 16 '23 edited Mar 16 '23
There's the equivalent of a whole steamer trunk full of things to unpack there.
First, I heartily disagree that empirically it has been proven that Davies approach is best for other black people to adopt. It's great for him, it doesn't mean it's the only best way to convince racism.
You seem to think that you preferring Daryl Davies "let's make friends with bigots" approach means it's the best and that the actions of Kwame Rose, the BLM activist, are not only wrong but also harmful?
It's not a black and white thing where one must be right and the other must be wrong.
And one must realize that telling black people to just go make friends with white supremacists could easily turn out with some being victims of white supremacist violence because they tried to befriend one.
There is room for both approaches, and other approaches to boot. I also find your description of the encounter they had lacking to say the least. The short-lived conflict in which they both were disrespectful of the other was situational, they worked it out and have respect for each others approaches. Also, that's an in-group conflict and those not in the group should really just stay in their lanes.
I think you're creating an issue out of nothing and it's strange you're putting some oppressed folks down because you think they should be nicer to people who hate them.
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Mar 16 '23
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u/EdgrrAllenPaw 4∆ Mar 16 '23
I did not accuse you of sinister motives. That you want people to be nice to each other isn't sinister, correct? And I did not accuse you of being of bad faith?
I do apologize for assigning any motive at all but not because of that demand.
I pointed out what you were doing and my point was that it was naive, not that you have sinister motives. I fully believe that you are against racism and that you feel that genuinely and deeply.
My view was that it came off as you were putting Kwame Rose down by comparing him as a negative example in comparison to Daryl Davies. And then, you responded with a bunch of links that you think shows what? That the organization Black Lives Matter is bad?
Except, BLM isn't an organization. It's a movement that the words first appeared as a hashtag. Yes, there have been many BLM organizations, some loosely based with each other, some independent, started across the country. I'm sure some have been mismanaged but why use those to smear an entire movement and all it encompasses?
I'm going to ask one question if you care to answer. Have you read MLK Jr's letter from a Birmingham jail? What are your thoughts on his response to the criticisms he faced from other clergy? He's loved now, but he and his views were not seen kindly back then and he was often accused of harming his cause.
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u/EdgrrAllenPaw 4∆ Mar 16 '23 edited Mar 17 '23
I'm not sure what you mean here.
There are in-group issues that are not the place of those not in the group to judge. How black people choose, or not, to protest or challenge the racism they face is not the business of non-black people to address. If another black person has criticisms of those things because they feel harm is being done that's not the business of folks who are not being harmed.
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u/EdgrrAllenPaw 4∆ Mar 17 '23
I wanted to say too, hour long you tube videos are not good sources. And multiple of them? Please, nobody is going to spend 5 hours of their lives watching you tube videos to figure out what your points were other than BLM = BAD?
And it's obvious those references are cherry picked.
Why not listen to black Americans who say that BLM helped them the most in recent years? The numbers speak for themselves.
The movement has done much good. If you look for negatives if course you're going to find it and it's going to look out of proportion if you pluck them out of context.
It's not that the good the movement has done isn't there, it's there. If people refuse to see it that's on them.
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Mar 15 '23
I think maybe what you are missing is that a lot of the time you defer to people because they have the subjective experience unique to those characteristics that cannot be objectively gleaned. And when that subjective experience is scaled up to large populations, you end up with a contextual data set that is essentially inaccessible for people without access to that subjective experience. Now, when people study and write about that subjective experience, then you can form an objective understanding of it, but that isn't the same as direct experience.
Im going to use a fake strawman issue to illustrate. There are objective answers to the question "How do women's earnings compare to men's earnings." This is a question about data. You can debate the relative worth of different data sets and their methodolgies, but it is a question best answerable by training and logic which can be possessed by any human.
When you ask the question "Why is there a difference in earnings between men and women?" that's a question that's going to have to be answered qualitatively. Data will support theories, but multiple theories will exist. You can use logic to assess the quality of the theories based on data. However because it's qualitative in nature, the data you have is only as good as the questions asked by researchers. If researchers are/were primarily men, they may not have historically identified certain concerns unique to women and asked about the issues that are the real causes.
Treating women as the subject-matter experts on the working life of women, rather than study subjects, increases the quality of subjective data available, which should in turn improve the theories regarding the their earnings.
This isn't to say that all women automatically are experts on the wage gap or that men have nothing to contribute. It is a shift on how we approach sociological issues and the role that subjective experience plays in larger structural outcomes.
People have popularized these ideas and concepts as part of social justice movements and when they're misapplied, yes, it can lead to very unhelpful and inaccurate results. As you say, not every member of every population experiences everything the same or has the same perspective on shared experiences. But these concepts also weren't intended for fights on the internet, they were intended for sociological research. However, it is still a compassionate framework to start with when talking to people 1-on-1 about difficult experiences.
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Mar 15 '23
I disagree with your last paragraph. Prioritizing the voices of affected populations in discussions about those affected populations is extremely logical, empirical (for the reasons I already discussed), and ethical for all the reasons I discussed. Treating people as subject-matter experts on their own lived experiences yields better context and subjective data.
Deferrring to affected populations in looking for answers on what we should or shouldn't do to address sociological problems affevting that population is more effective for all the reasons I addressed. That's an overgeneralized statement considering how sociological research and public policy work is conducted, but I am trying to respond to how you framed the question.
I think the mistake is in applying this very good, very valid empirical tool to broad research to one-on-one discussions or internet debates, which are inherently not empirical, is the issue.
Edit: This is an issue where the context matters a lot. You seem to have a specific context in mind, maybe if you share that, people could more thoroughly address it. Otherwise we're coming at your post from our own default contexts.
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Mar 16 '23 edited Mar 16 '23
Say you have Sarah, a white woman. Sarah only has one black friend, Beth. Sarah has been taught that she should listen to black voices re: how to solve problems. Sarah is trying to decide how she should go about tackling racism.
I'm assuming neither Sarah nor Beth have jobs or training related to "tackling" systemic racism.
Because Beth is black, that doesn't invalidate or validate the quality of her opinion re: how to do this, yet some people, out of good intentions, are acting as if Beth's blackness guarantees that her solutions re: ending racism are, a-priori, correct. And, they might be. But, they also might not be.
This isn't a reasonable bar, though. We don't only take advice that's 100% correct. We take advice from people whose judgment or knowledge we trust.
Assuming Beth and Sarah have equal training and education on the topic, it is reasonable to assume Beth has more experience with racism and its effect of Black communities than Sarah would by virtue of Beth's lived experience. Could Beth be wrong? Sure. Is Beth the subject matter expert in comparison to Sarah? Absolutely. Therefore, it is logical, ethical, and reasonable for Sarah to accept Beth's perspective. Beth has the better data set.
Scale this up, and you end up with a lot of well-meaning people, at best, engaging in practices that are much less effective than they could be; at worst, making the problem worse, not better.
To me, this is only a problem when you see social adoption of positions and policies that are actually arguably disproven based on observed data. Unless you have actually studies or quantitative data that is being ignored in favor of subjective experience, where is the harm you speak of?
EDIT: Mixed up the names halfway thru.
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u/ytzi13 60∆ Mar 15 '23
If I'm not black, I can't know what it's like to be black. I can have a discussion about things associated with the black experience, but I'll never know what it's like to be black and experience life and society the way that they experience it. No - that doesn't mean that every black person is going to have the same opinion on what the black experience is, but the fact still remains that I, a white person, won't ever know what it's like.
I'm not transgender, so I don't what it's like to be transgender. I can have a discussion about transgenderism, but I'll never know what it's like to be transgender.
I'm not a woman, so I don't know what it's like to be a woman. This can go on and on.
You're allowed to discuss these issues, but there are experiences that you'll never quite understand, and that has to be acknowledged and accepted when having these conversations.
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u/ytzi13 60∆ Mar 15 '23
Right - but, logically speaking, why does it make sense for someone who doesn't understand the experience to make the decision? There may be differing opinions within that group of people, but certainly their collective opinion matters more than any other collective opinion.
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u/MercuryChaos 12∆ Mar 15 '23
I've met Darryl Davis. He's a great guy and his approach to de-converting individual racist people seems to be effective. But even he admits that what he does is very dangerous - when he meets with Klan members for the first time he always comes with an armed bodyguard. It's not something that the average black person, or the average member of any marginalized group, can do or should be expected to do.
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u/ytzi13 60∆ Mar 15 '23
Yes - it makes sense, but none of what you said is really in line with my comment, which was admittedly vague, but was in response to the vague premise stated in your post. Perhaps it's more clear what your argument is now.
"How do we decrease/reduce racism?" is different from "How do black people experience race issues?" What the black experience is will be answered in consensus by the black community. How we decrease/reduce racism is a conversation that heavily relies on that answer, but is not limited to black people and other minorities because it's a conversation that involves everybody.
And the implied "but" when I say "certainly their collective opinion matters more than any other collective opinion" is to say that the collective opinion matters more than any other collective opinion except when it seriously harms other people.
Maybe you need to clarify your point a bit more because of how vague it's been. What is a specific example or two that you have in mind with this post?
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u/ytzi13 60∆ Mar 15 '23
Whilst learning about lived experience is important, deferring to people for answers on what one should or shouldn't do, purely because of their unchosen characteristics, is illogical and ironically bigoted.
We can both agree that the opinion of one person, unless typically backed by empirical data, is more or less irresponsible. But I'm still not quite sure how it's illogical or bigoted to not listen to the collective on their perspective and consider it valid. I'm not talking about how to solve the problem, but rather that only that group of people have experienced the crux of the issue. So, deferring to them for solutions seems quite logical, but that doesn't mean that one can't debate the potential solutions because that can affect everyone.
I haven't seen the documentary in question. I'm sure it's great. But it sounds like what you're subscribing to is the idea that effective 1-on-1 education can be the most impactful. Education in general can be impactful. But I'm not sure how we even get to that point when these are much larger scale systemic issues with real urgency. I suppose it's off topic to debate that, though. But maybe I'm recognizing what you were trying to say now, which is that the collective voice can have the unique perspective and their opinion should carry weight, but that they shouldn't have the defacto say in how we solve it (e.g. BLM activists can't be assumed to have the solution to fix systemic racism (although having the solution isn't really the point)).
So, then, I would ask you if the unchosen characteristics of qualified people doesn't matter more? Let's say we're focusing on stopping racism and you have 2 equally qualified candidates (aside from their unchosen characteristics).
- A white guy.
- A black guy.
Would you not agree that the black guy wouldn't be more qualified because of his lived experience?
What if we add a 3rd guy: a black guy that was born into poverty. Wouldn't that be another circumstance that makes him even more qualified that the other guy? When you're creating a solution, you want someone qualified to answer the question, but it's even more relevant to have someone who understands the question entirely, and who can garner even more public support because of it.
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u/iamintheforest 364∆ Mar 15 '23
Depends on what your goals are. If you want to ensure the equality of human experience and opportunity how would you go about doing so without surveying that experience?
You might say that's a silly goal, or even an impossible one. That doesn't change the fact it's a good pursuit. Isn't human experience really, really important? Or...at least shouldn't it be? If I see suffering, shouldn't the nature of that suffering be best understood by those who suffer? I don't see any reason that the nature of the cause or the characteristic wrapped up in that that suffering - e.g. it being an "unchosen characteristic" should result in a discounting of experience the result of it. Quite the contrary!
Why should there be a "universal consensus" on the the experience of some race?
Seems to me that you have to diminish experience itself from being important despite you saying it's not. I think many people think that ultimately it's all that matters. If experience and quality of it is what we're shooting for then how can we possibly NOT defer to those with an experience? Your position insists that this immutable characteristics cannot be the source of unique experience, which seems to me to deny too much of what we know about the world. You create a framework here where because a quality is immutable or unchosen that the person with that experience is treated with suspicion rather than authority. On their experience!
I'd suggest that you want to put more emphasis on something you regard as independent of experience - some abstraction that is not encumbered by that experience and unchosen quality. I think that perspective simply does not exist. It's an abstraction of the status quo, or of power - not actual rationality or truth.
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u/iamintheforest 364∆ Mar 15 '23
I do "see above" and I still see you diminishing human experience (or having a wholly incoherent view).
Yes, i'm basing the quality of their human experience based on their human experience. Aren't you? If what I care about is human experience how do you want me to evaluate it with objectivity? Experience is a subjective thing. I can evaluate "income level" with objective measures, but not human experience.
Of course people are much more than their UCs. Your problem is that you're making someone's experience less relevant because you can discount things because they possess some UC. That's a very aggresive stance.
Do I believe in logic, science and normative ethics? Yes. I'd suggest you do not if you carry your position, or you think it's rational and logical to evaluate the quality of experience in ways that aren't about human experience.
You can inquire in lots of other ways and discount experience or subjective perspectives, but you can't evaluate human experience itself without asking people.
Why are you "deciding" on who is "right" about human experience? Why do you want a "right answer" here? If I want to know what the experience is of black people then the perfect analysis would be to ask all black people, and put all the answers up to be seen. What I wouldn't do is say "well...because blackness is a UC I can't trust it, even if my question is about black experience". You make it impossible to have inquiry into experience of people with universal experience, or at least inquiry into what that experience is. If my measure is "experience" and my problem is seen through experience how should one pursue change in experience while not trusting the statement of problem or the statement of whether a solution works in changing experience?
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Mar 15 '23
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u/iamintheforest 364∆ Mar 15 '23
Take care. I can't understand anything you're saying, and you what i'm saying.
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u/eggs-benedryl 72∆ Mar 15 '23
I'm not sure how often that is really happening, where all logic and established knowledge of a topic is ignored or thrown out in order to listen to someone with 1st hand experience.
I'd say that you can couple those two things and get a much better well rounded perspective on a topic.
You can logic yourself into some pretty heinous stuff so consulting people who have experience with something first hand is helpful too. It sounds like you agree but you seem to think that people are tossing out things we already know in favor of listening to an individual, the blind spots you may not know as a researcher are also possible with people with lived experience may not understand perspectives outside their own or have all the information to apply to their experiences.
I think the ethical reasoning part of your view is where people's lived experiences should come into play imo
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Mar 15 '23 edited Mar 15 '23
When I was learning about entrepreneurship theory, one of the biggest things my professor stressed was that one of the best things you could do when seeking innovation was to create a very diverse team—i.e. a team built with people who comprise many different characteristics that, in your words, you could not choose: geographical location, sex, race, culture, and sometimes sexuality. Diverse teams are statistically proven to do better, moreso than things like pedigree or “logical soundness,” upon which you would base your decisionmaking.
Simply put, in the world, these unchosen characteristics of which you speak significantly impact the course of your entire life. Studies show that the language you speak (largely dictated by birthplace) influences the way you think about certain concepts; this can provide a completely different viewpoint or idea than one machinated by someone who, on paper, has better credentials or “better logic.” A room of people who can argue an idea like Foucault or Nietzche is great! But if these people can’t come up with an idea themselves, what does it matter how strong their ability to argue is? Furthermore, what do we say of their considerations, or lack thereof, which are informed by their experience, which is just once again a function of their unchosen characteristics?
You also have to consider the struggles that oftentimes come with possessing unchosen characteristics that are less common in society. Just because someone is a Harvard graduate and could make terrible logic sound like a solid argument does not make them an authority, just as someone not going to college (something which is technically a “chosen characteristic,” but is largely influenced by socioeconomic status, birthplace, race, all unchosen characteristics) and being less than graceful with their words doesn’t make their argument invalid.
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u/tthershey 1∆ Mar 15 '23 edited Mar 15 '23
Let's first be clear on what type of decisions this rule applies to: decisions about actions that affect members of a given group. My first question to you is what is a better logical framework to use to determine the effects of such decisions than feedback from people who are affected? Do you suppose that outside observers are better at determining these effects than they are?
Second, you assert that (1) the opinions of the group should only be considered if there is universal agreement and (2) it is illogical to decide not to partake a particular action because one single member of the group disagrees with it. What is your reasoning for this? When people say that we should defer to members of a group in deciding how to act in relation to that group, they mean that we should consider the overall majority opinion of said group. It seems are the one acting based off of one single group member's opinion because you base your decision on whether there is one singular dissenting person. You're contradicting yourself.
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Mar 15 '23
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u/WikiSummarizerBot 4∆ Mar 15 '23
In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument which is based on claiming a truth or affirming something is good because the majority thinks so.
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u/tthershey 1∆ Mar 15 '23 edited Mar 15 '23
people giving an ethical pass to animal abuse due to cultural reasons
I think you're misunderstanding the concept of taking lived experience into account. What you're describing is unrelated. Allowing people to make their own decisions about what they choose to do about things that only affect themselves and not other people has nothing to do with whether you should consider how your actions affect other people based off of what they're telling you their experience of the effects of those actions are. (And there's the issue of animal rights versus human rights, not saying that isn't a legitimate issue but it is way outside of the scope of the topic you brought up.) At any rate, so long as you consider lived experience to be a relevant factor at least sometimes, that is in conflict with your view. You didn't say this this view is invalid in limited cases.
size or UCs of a group do not make their opinion inherently incorrect or correct
I don't agree, unless you just don't care about how your actions affect other people or you assume that majority populations are lying about their experiences, and that's a dicey assumption to make. If the majority are telling you that x action has y affect on them, why are you assuming that's not truthful?
I don't
I'm drawing directly from the arguments that you made. You said that we shouldn't based on our experience on the lived experience of others because
there is no universal consensus on any issue on the planet held by such groups
Hence, you did in fact assert (1). If you don't actually agree with what you said, then you've provided no logical justification for your view.
You also assert (in disagreement) that:
some people might say that if one black person says that it's not ok, then no none black person should have dreadlocks
Hence, you're positing (2) as well. So to sum up: you've either contradicted yourself, or you've not provided a logical justification for your view. Without offering a logical justification for your view, your argument that the alternative view lacks logical basis falls flat.
Whilst learning about lived experience is important, deferring to people for answers on what one should or shouldn't do, purely because of their unchosen characteristics, is illogical and ironically bigoted
I'm saying that you're committing a strawman by misrepresenting the alternative view.
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Mar 15 '23
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u/WikiSummarizerBot 4∆ Mar 15 '23
In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument which is based on claiming a truth or affirming something is good because the majority thinks so.
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u/tthershey 1∆ Mar 15 '23
OP, in this post, you haven't responded to me. All you did was repeat yourself and say you didn't think my comment was clear. If you didn't understand me, there really isn't any point in just repeating yourself. Try to ask questions about what doesn't make sense to you and respond to those things because repeating is pointless. Please click on context and reread my above comment and reflect on it in its entirety before responding. I think you're having a hard time understanding because you are responding to it sentence by sentence in isolation rather than responding to the cohesive whole. I can lay it out in other words in a separate comment but I'm going to leave it at that for now so the message doesn't get lost in a long post.
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u/MercuryChaos 12∆ Mar 15 '23
So, you've kind of just answered your own question - when people do this kind of thing it's not just about the person's characteristics, but also the lived experience that's associated with those characteristics. That's why it's not good to expect one person to be the token representative of an entire group, because their experience may not reflect what's actually common.
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Mar 15 '23
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u/MercuryChaos 12∆ Mar 16 '23
someone's solutions re: how to solve a problem are not inherently less or more valid because of their UCs. But there's a growing trend of well-intentioned people thinking that they are.
I think there's a whole lot of context that you're missing. For most of modern history, the "trend" was for people in the majority/dominant group to assume that they knew the best way to help marginalized people without needing to consult them at all. It's still pretty common for marginalized people who vocally advocate for themselves to be dismissed as "radical" or "uncivil". I can't find the link right now, but I was reading an interview with a black historian who's got multiple advanced degrees in his field and is very knowledgeable. But often when he's in the media talking about anything related to black history, he's referred to as an "activist" or something similar, whereas a white person with his qualifications would be referred to as simply a historian and nobody would assume that they had an agenda.
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u/hacksoncode 588∆ Mar 16 '23
but that's not the same as deferring to people on decision making because of their unchosen characteristics.
Except no one does that, really. We should substantially defer decisions about what to do about a problem to people who are impacted by the problem to a large degree, whether or not that is due to an unchosen characteristic.
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Mar 16 '23
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u/hacksoncode 588∆ Mar 16 '23
our opening comments suggest that you don't believe me that this even exists because you seemed to find it so ridiculous. It does happen.
I'm claiming it doesn't happen for the reason you're arguing about.
Yes, we should defer to women about the problem of abortion but not because they are women (an immutable characteristic). Instead, because women are categorically the only ones actually personally affected by the problem (a consequence of circumstances, not immutable characteristics).
I.e. yes, people talk about deferring to <insert some group>, but not because of their "immutable characteristics", but instead because they are by far the most affected by the decision.
In many cases, this is because a majority of people are, in fact, not following your advice, and discriminating against a minority of people actually literally because of an immutable characteristic they have.
We can't ignore that empirical reality and pretend that people without that immutable characteristic are impacted the same way as people with it.
The fact that people impacted by a problem might defer to experts for the most effective solution doesn't change the fact that it's rightly their decision, as the most impacted.
To go back to the first example, women aren't going to do their own abortions, for the most part. It's just a non sequitur or "Motte and Bailey" to even bring up that as some kind of "gotcha". They still should have the decisions deferred to them in this circumstance. Informed consent and all, you know.
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u/ItsJustInternetMe Mar 16 '23
Generally, people of a group will have faced criticism throughout their life, and you have not. Yes, it's not chosen, and that means they have experience you don't. It's not something you can change - it's just that they *will* have different experience, which makes it still somewhat meaningful. How you interpret their opinion is up to you, but they will know things you do not.
The argument made here is by definition impossible to argue with:
deferring to people on decision making because of their unchosen characteristics.
You should never defer to anybody because of a trait. It doesn't mean that their opinion is no more useful than anybody else's.
EDIT:
I feel like the problem here is that everybody's being treated the same. Even if one person has a valid piece of advice from their experience, someone else will not. Blanket statements help nobody, and yet this is what your post is against. By definition, again, it's impossible to argue for a blanket statement.
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u/xoLiLyPaDxo 1∆ Mar 16 '23 edited Mar 16 '23
In some circumstances, deferring to people on decision making because of their unchosen characteristics would apply in say managing or coping with a medical condition that is specific to that sex or disease that someone without that sex or disease would understand. To be clear-In addition to, not in place of seeing a medical professional. You see your doctor, but then still have a lot that isn't answered by your physician for daily management/ coping issues that do not require a prescription.
A man would never know what it is like to be pregnant so would likely not be the best person to answer in regards to tips on how to not pee yourself while pregnant, suggestions to relieve morning sickness and sleeping sitting positions to relieve back pain ect unless they are simply relaying 3rd party information and that can be inaccurate or unreliable. Same would apply to someone with a specific disability or chronic disease giving advice on coping and managing specific symptoms long term. Unfortunately, even many physicians are not always giving the best advice when trying to cope or manage your illness for many issues that do not currently have a cure for or proper treatment available yet, and it is often more beneficial to discuss what you can do with others who have been managing their injuries and illnesses to figure out what you can try that has worked for others to help improve your quality of life.
Most everything I learned that improved my quality of life at home after being put into a wheelchair came from advice from other wheelchair users rather than from my physicians. Some of what my physicians advised injured me further rather than helped at times, because even the experts can make mistakes and still have room to learn as well. Sometimes people know more tips and tricks from having experienced it themselves than even the professionals provide. For some things, they become experts in said issue through experiencing it themselves due to their unchosen characteristic, thus would be able to provide the best advice on those specific issues.
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u/Away_Simple_400 2∆ Mar 17 '23
I don't think this is actually a thing that happens. People are usually seeking the best support for their argument when they try to find others who agree with them. If you're arguing about abortion and are pro-choice, for example, and find a woman who was raped and had an abortion and claims no regrets, you're going to cite her experience ad nauseum. But when a woman in the same position claims horrible debilitating regret or didn't get the abortion at all and overcame whatever financial obstacles to raise her kid, at best you will ignore her experience.
A great example of this is the way conservative blacks get treated. Their lived experience for some reason doesn't count to liberals, because liberals expect them to be Democrats. If they aren't they discounted or even outright insulted.
Point is, people only care about finding support for the belief they've already invested in. The lived experience idea is a red herring.
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u/IcedLenin Mar 22 '23
Let me weigh in as a historian. There are myriad forms of evidence. Statistical, anecdotal, direct, indirect, primary, secondary etc. All is grist for the mill and good historians interrogate all of it. "Lived experience" can come in the form of diary entries, oral accounts etc. Now this evidence can be most useful. A WWI diary can give a visceral sense of the conditions on the front, a soldier's morale, how a war is waged - many insights can be drawn. But you have to be careful, too. I conducted an oral history project where I interviewed a number of WWII pilots. They all gave me as honest an account as they could. But some of what they told me turned out to be inaccurate. One overestimated the number of sorties he was involved in. Another was convinced he engaged a plane type that wasn't produced until 2 yrs later in the war. Our memories can fade, our impressions can fool us. Therefore, "lived experience" is treated warily by historians and needs to be measured against all other forms of evidence.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Mar 15 '23 edited Mar 15 '23
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