somedumbguy wrote:
Okay, here it is.
You can debate one or two feminists one specific statements they have made.
But you cannot debate any feminist in general on feminism in general. And here, cannot means "it is impossible" and cannot means "it's a trap". And the reason for that is NAFALT.
[spoiler]Yes, it is basically a variation of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
You cannot debate any feminist in general on feminism because for any issue X you wish to raise, they are not those feminists that do X. Those are other feminists, not true feminists, feminism doesn't do that. If feminism ever did X, it was long ago, and those feminists are gone or dying out or were even wrong. But today's feminism, the feminists you are debating don't do X.
This is true for all issues X.
It is a corollary to the Feminist Central Cockup. (FCCK).
The Feminist Central Cockup works like this.
(FCCK): Feminism stands for everything, feminism stands for nothing. This is an empirically determined cockup and it is from induction of the pattern,
For any issue X in the uncountable set of Feminist Issues That Are Important (FI), you can find feminists that believe X is empowering, and feminists that believe X is oppressive, and you can find feminists that believe X one day and ~X the next day.
So for any issue X, once you find feminists that disagree with X on you through statements you can document they have made, you can debate those feminists on issue X. You do run the danger that they have somewhere else stated ~X.
But for all issues X, you cannot in general debate any feminist on X. Because FI is uncountably infinite, the chance the feminist you will debate holds X beliefs for the beliefs you want to debate the ~X position on is vanishingly small.
The feminist will win the debate by throwing down the NAFALT trump.
You want to argue ~X, but they agree with ~X, and furthermore, no true feminist believes in ~X.
You think I am bullshitting you, but here is a canonical example: Heather McNamara, Zinnia Jones' partner, is here to tell you that
TRUE Radical Feminists are not transphobic
http://freethoughtblogs.com/zinniajones ... ansphobia/
Now, perhaps you were thinking rad fems are of course transphobic, and perhaps contemporary fems are not transphobic. WELL YOU LOSE. NOT ONLY ARE contemporary feminists not transphobic, but NOT EVEN TRUE RAD FEMS are transphobic.
Those that are, are not true rad fems.
To wind up this extra
stupid long argument, I'll reiterate:
Due to the Feminist Central Cockup, in general, you cannot debate a feminist on feminism.
Corollary: you can debate specific feminists on specific statements they have made.
Corollary: you might be able to debate an intellectually honest feminist on feminism, if you have a good documented sense of feminist history. And good luck finding an intellectually honest feminist.[/spoiler]