The idea academics shouldn't makes arguments that might undermine people's own understanding of who they are is infuriatingly ludicrous. It rules out the denial of the existence of the soul, e.g. - it might upset Christians for whom souls are central to their self-understanding.
Or what about arguments against the Islamic notion of tawhid? Muslims are a marginalized group, religion is fundamental to their identity, so are arguments that bring the central tenets of that faith into question allowed? If they are, then why not gender critical arguments?
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The soul is about as good an analogy as analogies get, to my mind. Hard to argue that it’s not intrinsic to a person’s sense of self.
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It's absolutely fundamental to how many (most?) religious people see themselves. And de facto destroying the ghost in the machine can precipitate an existential crisis in the person who no longer believes. But nobody seriously thinks this rules out criticizing dualism.
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And (in most formulations?) denying it in myself is equivalent to denying that they have theirs, as their belief fundamentally requires everyone to have one.
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Yes. And if you add that sort of thought to the work of Asch on conformity, I think you begin to get to an explanation of why there is absolutely zero tolerance of dissent on the part of the gender identity crowd. (One dissenster breaks the spell, basically.)
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Don’t know Asch (where would I best start?) but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the contrast with my (many) very strongly religious friends over my life who have not been at all threatened my definite if non-haranguing atheism. Something means they don’t need “the spell”.
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This is Asch's most famous (first) study. (The section starting p. 230 on non-unanimity is interesting.) https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/1952-asch.pdf …
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Thankyou.
End of conversation
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