why do SJW's deconstruct race and sex?

[Baruch]

The thing is that unless you believe in substance dualism and believe in some kind of soul, your body is the one the configures the other two categories, how then does this work? The interesting part is how do they interact with each other.

I am simplifying.  We have to, just that ... we can deal with numbers bigger than two.  There are seven billion sexes/genders/orientations/preferences ... there is no such thing as species ... all categories are imposed from above by humans ... to make our life simpler.  But as Einstein said ... make everything as simple as possible but no simpler!  But your final question is a good one.  Your first question tells me that you are a materialist, where the physical presence of a penis determines everything ... that the mind is simply the objective outcome of the body ... a secondary effect as it were.  So a male body produces a male mind (but if that term is an over simplification?) aka there are no gay people etc.  In effect the subjective doesn't exist?  So don't call it mind or soul ... but the subjective, in principle, is separate from the objective.  Then we can avoid the endless debate on what "mind" is.

[Baruch]

Uh, yes. If it wasn't for a social upbringing where that is highly discouraged there is a good chance that is what I would identify as.

They would be a male with a penis who identifies as a woman. As for anything more than that, it would be up to them to determine what they are. I don't believe with something like sexuality and gender you can just put them in a nice little box and say, "They are 100 percent THIS!". Which is where I have to slightly disagree with you, Baruch...

Straight, gay/lesbian, bi isn't necessarily accurate, since there are people who are of mixed sex... likewise there are pansexuals who the sex doesn't matter one way or another, demisexuals who are attracted to people whom they have deep emotional connections with, regardless of sex, asexuals and so on.

The same can go for gender, there are people who don't identify as male or female...

At the end of the day these titles are just trying to reduce an EXTREMELY complicated and diverse scale into three or four little boxes, and it just doesn't accurately work. And who are we to tell someone, "No, you're not what you claim to be... you most closely fit this box, so you are CLEARLY this box!" even when that box does not accurately describe them?

Why do we need to put people's sexuality or gender into an organized, cut-and-paste box, and why is that a harder idea to get one's head around (I mean that in the most unoffensive way, I promise...) than to believe we can just go around and label such an incredibly complex thing as one's gender or sexuality? When you put these labels on people then you are only limiting them from being who they really are, and that is never a good thing.

That's my two cents on it, anyways.

You are working at my post too hard ... and I am not implying hard boundaries (and I certainly didn't say so explicitly).  I was simplifying ... just less simplifying than the norm.  And yes, if we get into the details of hermaphroditism and gender dysphoria ... the nuances are endless.  But I don't have that much time ;-)  But to respond ... this is why I included 3 levels not two, in each of three distinctions ... and a final category for anything falling outside all of it.  But DSM-5 it is not.  Most folks can't stay gray-level ... though one can justify the ... no distinctions ... as a metaphysics ... at least in Buddhism.  If we were all Buddhists, I would post differently.  But for most, Linneaus is good for botany ... we can't simply say ... there are plants out there ... we want to say what kind of plant.

Objectivists (sometimes same as materialists) deny the existence of the subjective.  This would be Behaviorism in psychology.  Introspection can't be observed externally, therefore it is not objective, therefore it doesn't exist.  This is where I see Mauricio implicating from.  He has solved Descartes dualism of mind-matter to simply matter.  There is no metaphysics, just physics.  But that is another string for another time.

Since you self disclose, I can to.  I am not entirely straight, but I am being entirely straight about this ;-)  As far as the incomprehension of a person of one type for another, the elephant in the room is always male/female since it is the most common ... and we know how that discussion ends ;-)  Basically it takes imagination, and anecdotal info from say ... a gay person, for a non-gay person to get their head around the other person's experience ... so that empathy can happen (on sex or anything really).  And for most people, they don't even want to try to go there ... socially and in terms of their personal comfort zone.  Know Thyself is ancient but really hard and scary to do.  In the end Socrates knew he was a dead man.

[Jack89]

Well done Mauricio.  The argument in your original post,

it seems to me they (SJWs) just want to delegitimize certain concepts that are problematic for "equality"

makes perfect sense after reading other arguments in this thread.  What clarified it for me was the implication that there are no significant innate behavioral differences between men and women.  Muddy the water enough and you don't have to address the facts.

Seriously, well done. 

[Jack89]

I've had bad experiences with both SJW and MRA. I don't fit anywhere, and I panicked, so don't mind me.

If you want a better reason, ask around. Someone ought to remember the exact thread that hit hard.

No worries.  I'm not sure what exactly happened with you, but I've developed a dislike of SJWs as well, to include 3rd wave feminists and MRAs.  They're divisive, promote a victim mentality within their groups, and push for supremacy of their own particular demographic at the expense of others.  But what I dislike most is their obsession with censoring anyone who disagrees with them. 

[Baruch]

Addenda after having time to read more of the previous responses:

Race is an obsolete anthropological and legal construct.  Is is no longer recognized as scientific, by current science, any more than phlogiston is.  Advanced societies don't recognize it as a legal construct either, except here in the US we are still required or encouraged to state a self-identified ethnicity.  And yes, this leave things open to Ms Dolezal, who identified as Black, regardless of her parents or some ethnicity police in the Black community.  I like it when the form has the option "other" ... but I usually put down "white" ... because "jewish" is no longer a category to be listed ;-)  A problem arises in the US, because certain ethnicities are categorized for "affirmative action" ... and making a false legal claim could get one into trouble.  But then it would be up to a court to decide if you are truly a member of a particular ethnicity ... but this is a legal problem, not a scientific problem.  So ultimately this is subject to politics, because it involves the law.  In America we have a unique ethnicity problem as well ... to be a Native American ... you have to be recognized as such by the authorities of a legally recognized tribe ... you can't become a Native American by simply putting on feathers.  And one can be sued by Native Americans in civil court ... for false representation as well (sort of like trademark infringement) ... no matte how much one may admire Native Americans.

Gender identification is fluid.  But regardless of one's self identification, the status of "woman" is also a legal construct ... with legal advantages or disadvantages.  This is why in the US a trans-sexual has to be legally declared to be so (pre-op or post-op) ... because all their legal paperwork has to change, though not necessarily their name.  So ultimately this is subject to politics, because it involves the law.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Oh look, another argument that will ultimately go nowhere!

[Hakurei Reimu]

Objectivists (sometimes same as materialists) deny the existence of the subjective.

Objectivism is a completely orthogonal philosophy from materialism and does not make the claim that subjectivity does not exist. Materialism also does not deny the existence of the subjective; it denies the existence of all substance but the material, but one of the core assertions of many materialists is that subjectivity is a construct of material beings â€" it exists, just not all on its own.

[Baruch]

Objectivism is a completely orthogonal philosophy from materialism and does not make the claim that subjectivity does not exist. Materialism also does not deny the existence of the subjective; it denies the existence of all substance but the material, but one of the core assertions of many materialists is that subjectivity is a construct of material beings â€" it exists, just not all on its own.

Yes, there is much overlap.  I was struggling for the right synonym.

[mauricio]

to shinaru, I got tendinitis can't respond in depth:

You are simply attaching to much baggage that does not necessarily follow. We need honest, unbiased and objective examination of this issues we cannot just try too sweep them away because they are difficult or makes us personally uncomfortable or because they can be hijacked for improper ends and much less should we try to obfuscate with rhetorical tricks like SJW do. That's the only way to understand who we truly are and stop wallowing on shallow assumptions and fuzzy, rhetorical and unscientific theories like some of what gender studies offer, that many times are also prone to being hijacked for political and other improper ends. At least objective theories of gender/sex/race would be more accurate.

[mauricio]

Objectivism is a completely orthogonal philosophy from materialism and does not make the claim that subjectivity does not exist. Materialism also does not deny the existence of the subjective; it denies the existence of all substance but the material, but one of the core assertions of many materialists is that subjectivity is a construct of material beings â€" it exists, just not all on its own.

this to me the mind emerges from the processes of the brain, but any change to the brain (actually the entire body) affects the mind, with no body there's no mind. That's what I mean by being a substance monist. There's no soulstuff, ectoplasm or super natural substances.

[gentle_dissident]

In Biopsychology class, many years ago, I watched a video about how thoughts and behaviors can alter hormone levels. The college may have just been sending us the message, "Don't act gay, and you won't be gay." After all, it was in Oklahoma. I haven't seen the study since.

I know I can pull out my "feminine" side at the drop of a hat. I don't know what would happen if I stayed there for days. I'm sure my GF would get tired of the experiment, despite her social attraction to homosexuals.

This article suggests we can evolve in our lifetime.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/your-thoughts-can-release-abilities-beyond-normal-limits/

Epigenetics suggests that we can pass on some of these changes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics

BTW, I don't have a dog in this fight. These are just some observations. But, if you feel a need, come at me bro.

[Baruch]

this to me the mind emerges from the processes of the brain, but any change to the brain (actually the entire body) affects the mind, with no body there's no mind. That's what I mean by being a substance monist. There's no soulstuff, ectoplasm or super natural substances.

Neurology ignores the EM fields in the brain ... but the folks taking the Electroencephalograms are paying attention.  There are disjointed areas of expertise.  I would say, be careful taking neurology whole ... since it only tells half the story.  And one can define EM fields as substance if one wants ... but most people recognize that it is not a substance, even though it exists.  Your radio is made up of substances, but the radio waves it taps into are not.  One hundred years ago, this was sufficiently loosy-goosy that soulstuff was compared to radio.  One has to make the migration from materialism to physicalism ... to exclude all mumbo jumbo.  If you define physics to be all inclusive ... then by definition there is nothing outside of physics.  But that leaves aside the question of ... what is physics (aka natural philosophy).  For some this is QFT ... but I find that a bit fundamentalist ... I think that reality is more than a bubbly Heisenberg vacuum.  And not all psychologists reduce psychology to biology, not all biologists reduce biology to chemistry, and not all chemists reduce chemistry to physics ... only the reductionists do.

[mauricio]

Neurology ignores the EM fields in the brain ... but the folks taking the Electroencephalograms are paying attention.  There are disjointed areas of expertise.  I would say, be careful taking neurology whole ... since it only tells half the story.  And one can define EM fields as substance if one wants ... but most people recognize that it is not a substance, even though it exists.  Your radio is made up of substances, but the radio waves it taps into are not.  One hundred years ago, this was sufficiently loosy-goosy that soulstuff was compared to radio.  One has to make the migration from materialism to physicalism ... to exclude all mumbo jumbo.  If you define physics to be all inclusive ... then by definition there is nothing outside of physics.  But that leaves aside the question of ... what is physics (aka natural philosophy).  For some this is QFT ... but I find that a bit fundamentalist ... I think that reality is more than a bubbly Heisenberg vacuum.  And not all psychologists reduce psychology to biology, not all biologists reduce biology to chemistry, and not all chemists reduce chemistry to physics ... only the reductionists do.

Have this great article that although not directly addressing this it clarifies some issues regarding this topic. For example it addresses the term reductionist and other related things to the mind stuff vs physiological stuff.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01100/full

also this video on why substance dualism fails.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS4PW35-Y00

[Baruch]

If you are a Unified Field theorist (Einstein) or just a QFT enthusiast ... then of course there is no such thing as dualism ... there is the attempt of natural philosophy to achieve the monism that India has had for millennia.  Reductionism is a bottom up monism.  But top down monism is still an option ... and happens to be the one I sometimes take.

A note on metaphysics.  Monism, dualism and pluralism are tools, not destinations.  There is no one correct view ... one either has or not, the ability to look at things from more than one POV ... or able to empathize with the multiple POVs one will encounter with other folks.  In my case I only use monism as a theory, for all practical purposes I am a pluralist (in the context of religious humanism).

[Ace101]

So I was watching this young girl make this painfully stupid argument and it got me thinking. What is she trying to accomplish?

They're just putting their lack of education on display for the world to see. They're essentially Marxists and they're simply taking Marxist theories of class conflict and extending these to biological characteristics like race, sex, etc.

Race, sex, gender, etc are hard biological science backed up by evolutionary biology, so they're coming pretty close to flat out rejecting evolution in everything but name.

Basically they just don't like the perceived conclusions of evolutionary biology (such as innate cross cultural differences in male/female behavior, and minor physiological difference between races) even though conclusions such as racial or sexual "superiority" aren't actually backed by the science itself, so they're just rejecting the science - like a creationist rejecting evolution because he thinks it "explains away God" (even though it's possible to believe in evolutionary biology and still believe in a God to begin with; aka theistic evolution).

"Gender is a social construct... but being gay is genetic" - That right there sums up the stupidity of their arguments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WChwBGf05DA