If being transexual is so dangerous, why would anybody go in for that lifestyle?

[SquallTheBlade]

If your inner and outer sex/gender don't match, then you're forced to put on an act for the world and pretend to be something you're not and suppress what you are. Doing that for too long drives you crazy and makes you miserable and hate your life, because you're not allowed to relax your guard and just be yourself..

You know people do that all the time. People act differently, suppress certain behaviour and generally don't be themselves every day. We kind of have "masks" that we put on depending on whom we interact it. We interact differently around our friends, co-workers, strangers, family etc. It's nothing new really. Everyone does it.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

If your inner and outer sex/gender don't match, then you're forced to put on an act for the world and pretend to be something you're not and suppress what you are. Doing that for too long drives you crazy and makes you miserable and hate your life, because you're not allowed to relax your guard and just be yourself..

You know people do that all the time. People act differently, suppress certain behaviour and generally don't be themselves every day. We kind of have "masks" that we put on depending on whom we interact it. We interact differently around our friends, co-workers, strangers, family etc. It's nothing new really. Everyone does it.

Except that in those cases, you're only masking one aspect of yourself in specific situations. Like not acting like a rowdy gamer at your desk job, or not talking about your crossdressing in front of family, or whatever. In those cases, you suppress it in some instances and let it all out in others.

That's not the same as suppressing your entire gender (which is a basic and huge aspect of yourself), and having everyone treat you as something you know you're not, all day every day.

 

[TWRule]

The reason transgender people are open about being transgender is mostly the existential idea of authenticity. Being honest with yourself and presenting yourself honestly might reduce the amount of tolerance you'll get, but it'll also mean that those that love you and the love you feel for yourself is just more genuine.

I think there is some confusion regarding this idea of 'authenticity', and it's a confusion that is centrally important to issues of identity in general. Whether or not you meant it this way, I think some clarification is called for.

The common-sense idea of 'authenticity' assumes that there is some stable, unchangeable 'true', 'core', or 'essential' self that we ought to act and think in accordance with, identify ourselves with, in order to be 'authentic'.

This is *not* the idea of 'authenticity' spoken of in existential philosophy -

You're getting your philosophers mixed up. Beauvoir is typically the one that most trans people lift up in terms of authenticity.

It's possible that the poster I was responding to meant Beauvoir specifically, though I had no way of knowing that - and I made clear I was drawing on Sartre here, so I'm not sure what 'mix-up' you were referring to (if we are being careful, there are many differing conceptions of 'authenticity' among those associated with existentialism, though unless we could accuse someone like Beauvoir of inconsistency, I think it is fair to say they would all reject the essentialist idea I described). It's been awhile since I've encounter Beauvoir, nor am I especially familiar with Kierkegaard, so I'll respond to your other points as directly as I can.

The thing is, that trans people face an existential crisis each day until they begin to transition, trying to marry flesh with mind. It's not something that is merely the assumption of tropes, but rather self-construction.

Sure, ill-conceived self-construction is still self-construction in a broad sense, but whether or not tropes are overtly acted out, there are still presupposed conceptions of sex, gender, etc, being drawn on here - not to mention all the underlying confusion implicit in the very attempt to 'marry flesh with mind'. We are each on the precipice of existential crisis at all times, not merely 'transpersons' - yet certainly that fact alone does not justify a given specific reaction to anxiety/looming despair, even if the former might partially explain the latter.

But the idea of authenticity makes sense as Beauvoir meant it to mean when comparable to the nature of being for trans people. The freedom from essentialist ideas of the notions of self, and rather adopting liberty to self-expression. As long as one's character serves to emphasise, properly construct, and inevitably be true to their nature through it's construction, then that's all that matters.

Here's where I'm going to have to ask for clarification, perhaps due to my lack of familiarity with the thinkers you are referencing. What's the notion of 'one's nature' that is not bogged down in essentialism, yet somehow allows for things like surgery, dressing according to ready-made social expectation of some gender trope, etc., which we've been discussing in this thread?

It's not about tropes, but rather finding the path of least obstacles which inevitably moves towards a state of being as free as possible from despair.

I have to admit, if this is the goal of transpersons, the measures we've been discussing that they take seems an ineffective way to go about it. If you try to operate within ready-made social categories and the like to construct your identity, that identity will inevitably meet its own borders, leave itself vulnerable to being threatened and collapse as soon as the person is confronted with an internal difference which puts their subsumability under that category in question. Then the anxiety will resurface all the more painfully and they will be back to square one. Regardless of what people actually do, it seems to me that proper confrontation of anxiety, dispair, etc., and the whole existential situation underlying them, is a step toward the proper long-term response to such things. We can do that by rejecting inadequate underlying assumptions about ourselves and about how we ought to go about constructing our identites.

(Edit) I would also say that I find your general idea of authenticity to be kind of broken from personal experience.

To be clear, it is not my idea - it is Sartre's - and not particularly my favorite existentialist notion of authenticity, though I think it served the purpose it was intended to in my earlier argument.

The basics of existence preceding essence means there should be inherent rights of self-categorization (focus on the self, not subjective appraisal by others), if it means a greater ability to express oneself. Which is why labels can be a powerful means of expression rather than a limiter on it in many aspects.

I don't follow your train of thought here - let's assume that I think there are, in fact, 'inherent rights of self-categorization' (more precisely, I think we have the freedom and ability to self-organize/self-construct identity as self-understanding, whether or not we choose to make use of categorical concepts in doing so); I don't see how that makes self-labeling a 'means of self-expression', unless pretending to be, say, an inanimate object, an beast, or a robot would also be means of self-expression on my part. These labels are ultimately objectifying because persons always transcend categorization; how could they not be as long as we are existentially free?

Being able to say one is trans is empowering in a sense that it actually leads one to being able to change their perceived character, to have it validated as true, and thus best suited their nature as they feel they wish to construct and express it.

That to me sounds exactly like self-objectification. If you're referring to how society views you, then sure, categorization is useful for easy getting around in the day to day - but we were discussing self-perception, and to force yourself into a socially ready-made category just so that it can be easily affirmed by others seems to be counterproductive to understanding the fuller extent of one's existence. But perhaps I have misunderstood you, in which case, please clarify.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

It's been awhile since I've encounter Beauvoir, nor am I especially familiar with Kierkegaard, so I'll respond to your other points as directly as I can.

This is going to be a problem then.

Sure, ill-conceived self-construction is still self-construction in a broad sense, but whether or not tropes are overtly acted out, there are still presupposed conceptions of sex, gender, etc, being drawn on here - not to mention all the underlying confusion implicit in the very attempt to 'marry flesh with mind'. We are each on the precipice of existential crisis at all times, not merely 'transpersons' - yet certainly that fact alone does not justify a given specific reaction to anxiety/looming despair, even if the former might partially explain the latter.

No, they're not. They're self explanations of concepts. Unless definitions and language is bad, this is has to be wrong. Once again, self-construction is meaningless without conveyance of self. Whether you like it or not, conveyance of self is not going to be entirely representative of the whole. Nor does it have to be to convey meaning. We do not exist in absolutes of expression or chaos, but at the same time nor do we have to to craft individual meaning. There is rhyme and reason to the self, thus do not make it 'ill-conceived'.

Here's where I'm going to have to ask for clarification, perhaps due to my lack of familiarity with the thinkers you are referencing. What's the notion of 'one's nature' that is not bogged down in essentialism, yet somehow allows for things like surgery, dressing according to ready-made social expectation of some gender trope, etc., which we've been discussing in this thread?

Basics of existentialism ... one crafts their own meaning. That is their nature. Surgery, clothes, way I speak, everything helps me to convey that which I am now. No one is strongarming me to dress a certain way, neither am I ever going to find myself wearing something every other person is wearing at that moment.

I have to admit, if this is the goal of transpersons, the measures we've been discussing that they take seems an ineffective way to go about it. If you try to operate within ready-made social categories and the like to construct your identity, that identity will inevitably meet its own borders, leave itself vulnerable to being threatened and collapse as soon as the person is confronted with an internal difference which puts their subsumability under that category in question. Then the anxiety will resurface all the more painfully and they will be back to square one. Regardless of what people actually do, it seems to me that proper confrontation of anxiety, dispair, etc., and the whole existential situation underlying them, is a step toward the proper long-term response to such things. We can do that by rejecting inadequate underlying assumptions about ourselves and about how we ought to go about constructing our identites.

Kierkegaard's despair ... I'm not talking about any of this stuff. This is why I brought up Kierkegaard to begin with.

No, the despair is internalized. It is internal. You are not who you want to be, to be free of your obstacles. Despair is not so much that which has the quality to make one despair, but rather the quality of finding oneself in error to overcome one's problems, or facilitate the nature of their self validation. The grand majority of trans people I talk to feel like this in some way or aspect. There is a disconnect between mind, body and self image. Self-construction. Self-naming. Self-image. These are not 'bad' things, and the idea that it corresponds to a trope of humanity is less accurate as that it corresponds to one's SENSE of humanity. What they wish to be. No trans person says; "I want to look EXACTLY, like a CLONE, of some person."

To be clear, it is not my idea - it is Sartre's - and not particularly my favorite existentialist notion of authenticity, though I think it served the purpose it was intended to in my earlier argument.

Right, but I question whether you actually have the idea of authenticity actually locked down, however.

I don't follow your train of thought here - let's assume that I think there are, in fact, 'inherent rights of self-categorization' (more precisely, I think we have the freedom and ability to self-organize/self-construct identity as self-understanding, whether or not we choose to make use of categorical concepts in doing so); I don't see how that makes self-labeling a 'means of self-expression', unless pretending to be, say, an inanimate object, an beast, or a robot would also be means of self-expression on my part. These labels are ultimately objectifying because persons always transcend categorization; how could they not be as long as we are existentially free?

Defining meaning is objective. You cannot avoid meaning, and that's the entire problem you're missing. Saying I'm trans does not make me anything like any other trans other than providing my self-validation and my wish to convey meaning to others. It is not performed to convey meaning unto myself.

That to me sounds exactly like self-objectification. If you're referring to how society views you, then sure, categorization is useful for easy getting around in the day to day - but we were discussing self-perception, and to force yourself into a socially ready-made category just so that it can be easily affirmed by others seems to be counterproductive to understanding the fuller extent of one's existence. But perhaps I have misunderstood you, in which case, please clarify.

Once again, you're failing to recognise the primary problem. I do not talk to confer meaning unto myself, but deliver in the best capacity my will to communicate meaning to others. I am still myself, and just as much myself, and just as much the driver of my own self and nature, and fate ... regardless of how I choose to dress, choose to look, choose to act, choose to label myself as.

"I am trans..." is not 'self-objectification'. It's about description of self to others as best as one is able, It's self-validation. Inherently liberating. Far more liberating than not being able to describe something about oneself.

 

[TWRule]

Once again, self-construction is meaningless without conveyance of self.

Why? Why would my inability to represent my existence with neat ready-made social labels make my own process of self-understanding meaningless? If by 'meaningless' you just mean 'difficult or impossible to straightforwardly convey in categorical terms', then sure - but I don't accept the implication that that is all that language is capable of, nor that even if it were, it would be grounds for resigning the process of self-understanding to categorical terms.

Whether you like it or not, conveyance of self is not going to be entirely representative of the whole. Nor does it have to be to convey meaning. We do not exist in absolutes of expression or chaos, but at the same time nor do we have to to craft individual meaning. There is rhyme and reason to the self, thus do not make it 'ill-conceived'.

I know overt practices of self-description are not going to be representative of the whole, particularly when using social labels - I was not arguing that point (though I am not sure why you insist on bringing that up when we were discussing self-understanding). I'm not entirely clear on what you're saying here but, for my part, I was simply stating that attempts to "marry the flesh with the mind" and organizing our identity based on unexamined conceptions of gender, sex, etc., made use of those ill-conceived notions (of gender, etc.). In other words, it's senseless to think of yourself as 'trans' when your understanding of the term hasn't even been thoroughly reflected upon, just as ones supposed yearning to 'marry the flesh with the mind' needs unpacking and critical questioning of its presuppositions.

Here's where I'm going to have to ask for clarification, perhaps due to my lack of familiarity with the thinkers you are referencing. What's the notion of 'one's nature' that is not bogged down in essentialism, yet somehow allows for things like surgery, dressing according to ready-made social expectation of some gender trope, etc., which we've been discussing in this thread?

Basics of existentialism ... one crafts their own meaning. That is their nature. Surgery, clothes, way I speak, everything helps me to convey that which I am now. No one is strongarming me to dress a certain way, neither am I ever going to find myself wearing something every other person is wearing at that moment.

I do not recognize this interpretation of the thought that everyone must craft his or her own meaning from any existentialist author I have read (nor do I have cause to think Beauvior, based on what I have read of her, should be championing such an interpretation). First of all, each existentialist I've come across distinguishes what one conveys with how one understands themselves with what one is, as in Sartre's example of the man who acts like a waiter (he is in bad faith, because he is actually an existentially free human being, not this self-charicature constructed of waiter tropes). Again, Sartre would say that the person who feels compelled to act 'like a certain gender' or even to 'act trans' for purposes of solving their own identity crisis would be deluding themselves (and I agree on this point). "Self-expression" made by presenting a semblance of oneself where one believes things like their clothes define them is textbook inauthenticity - what people see when they look at another is not something that we should want to have to cater to, and in any case is irrelevant to self-perception.

No, the despair is internalized. It is internal. You are not who you want to be, to be free of your obstacles. Despair is not so much that which has the quality to make one despair, but rather the quality of finding oneself in error to overcome one's problems, or facilitate the nature of their self validation. The grand majority of trans people I talk to feel like this in some way or aspect. There is a disconnect between mind, body and self image. Self-construction. Self-naming. Self-image. These are not 'bad' things, and the idea that it corresponds to a trope of humanity is less accurate as that it corresponds to one's SENSE of humanity. What they wish to be. No trans person says; "I want to look EXACTLY, like a CLONE, of some person."

There being a disconnect between 'mind, body, and self-image' again seems like a human issue to me, not a specifically 'trans' one. I don't necessarily associate my identity closely with my own body, but does that mean I should get surgery? To look like what? A disembodied mind? You don't have to say 'I want to look exactly like someone else' to draw on tropes. "I want to look like a woman because I feel like a woman rather than a man inside" already draws on tropes. What is a woman? What is a man? How does one or the other "look"? How does one "feel like" one or the other? What could the person you want to be 'inside' have to do with changing your external appearance? Will you suddenly feel at home in existence by adding or subtracting some genitalia? Only if you confuse yourself into thinking that you *are* this flesh - but that wouldn't really be a "marriage of flesh and mind" - only a confused mashing together of the two.

To be clear, it is not my idea - it is Sartre's - and not particularly my favorite existentialist notion of authenticity, though I think it served the purpose it was intended to in my earlier argument.

Right, but I question whether you actually have the idea of authenticity actually locked down, however.

Well again, there is no "the" idea - but I'm fairly confident I have Sartre's idea adequately 'locked down', yes - unless you'd like to explain to me with cited evidence how I do not. Not all my comments will be based in Sartre's ideas of course - I am in some places putting forth my own.

Defining meaning is objective. You cannot avoid meaning, and that's the entire problem you're missing. Saying I'm trans does not make me anything like any other trans other than providing my self-validation and my wish to convey meaning to others. It is not performed to convey meaning unto myself.

Existentialists indeed hold that 'meaning' is not pre-given, it must be constructed - nothing I have said is in conflict with that thought - but that does not mean that the existentialists have no means of evaluating whether a person's specific choices are good ones or not. Specifically, if you make choices that speak to a misunderstanding of your own existentially free nature, then those choices ought to be criticized. Thinking your clothes, overt mannerisms, and the form of your flesh *are* you or have any constitutive purchase on your identity are among such possible misunderstandings. All a transperson going through the surgery and theatrics tells me at a glance is that they have so misunderstood themselves, not that what they mean to 'convey' has anything to do with what they are beyond that misunderstanding.

Again, I don't know what 'self-validation' someone would be looking for in making use of a public categorical concept 'trans'. It puts you in a box - a box you presumably share with other people - but in putting yourself in that box, you are emphasizing your similarity to those people, not your distinct uniqueness from them. If, in actuality, every 'transperson' is a unique individual and their ways of thinking of their identity vary enough, then the term 'trans' becomes effectively meaningless, as it cannot adequately describe two or more persons. I believe that is the case when it comes to the process of self-understanding. At best, the word could signal that most 'transpeople' have convinced themselves that they do think the same way about their identities, which would be self-delusion as well as self-objectification.

"I am trans..." is not 'self-objectification'. It's about description of self to others as best as one is able, It's self-validation. Inherently liberating. Far more liberating than not being able to describe something about oneself.

I don't understand this idea at all. Should my saying "I am a white male" be liberating? Those labels have nothing to do with how I think of myself - why should my self-esteem be at all bound up in them? It's the same in the case of 'trans'. Why should I think the later label is any better a description of anyone than my former examples? Are you going to accuse me of wanting to be 'a white male'? Or, if you're saying the statement 'I am trans' is supposed to somehow be a statement that would only be clearly conveyed as an ideal in certain contexts (certainly the language alone doesn't make it clear), then what is the ideal? "I am a fleshy body that wants to be a slightly different fleshy body"? How is any version of that better than simply accepting that you are *you* - that is, this unique existence which escapes all categorical description? I find that thought far more 'liberating' - being able to say "I'm a white male" is just an easy way to shoo away annoying idiots and fill out legal documents - it is not 'liberating'. If you aren't willing to explain your way of thinking on this point in more detail, then we probably won't make any progress in this discussion and should cut it off.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Snip.

I've read way more of what you've said than I really need to so as to understand where you seem to be coming from. But there is a singular and massive thing you're ignoring here. Humans by nature are a social animal. Being different by it self doesn't convey anything anyone understands, except for with in one's own mind. Being transgender conveys at the very minimum to other people, using my self as an example, means I do not conform to typical ideas of what makes a man or a woman. Unless we magically become a purely psychic and empathic race who can communicate entirely through thought, then we'll have to settle for our limits. That means labels and explanations of self, which also means framing ourselves in a manner that others can understand.

Defining ones self as transgender is liberating in the fact that it's a label that means others can understand. So even if I'm different to usual application of the label, at the very least I have a starting point to convey myself to others.

If you want to cram all of this in to existential philosophy you're gonna end up with a nebulous mass that means nothing, because you can't convey self in that manner with the limits we have.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Why? Why would my inability to represent my existence with neat ready-made social labels make my own process of self-understanding meaningless? If by 'meaningless' you just mean 'difficult or impossible to straightforwardly convey in categorical terms', then sure - but I don't accept the implication that that is all that language is capable of, nor that even if it were, it would be grounds for resigning the process of self-understanding to categorical terms.

Okay, for starters ... it's not small boxes. There's nothing else that can be said. And you are committing yourself to the bad faith argument that Sartre postulates. Being trans does not fit anyone anywhere in some grand scheme of things.

I know overt practices of self-description are not going to be representative of the whole, particularly when using social labels - I was not arguing that point (though I am not sure why you insist on bringing that up when we were discussing self-understanding). I'm not entirely clear on what you're saying here but, for my part, I was simply stating that attempts to "marry the flesh with the mind" and organizing our identity based on unexamined conceptions of gender, sex, etc., made use of those ill-conceived notions (of gender, etc.). In other words, it's senseless to think of yourself as 'trans' when your understanding of the term hasn't even been thoroughly reflected upon, just as ones supposed yearning to 'marry the flesh with the mind' needs unpacking and critical questioning of its presuppositions.

Stop calling them social labels, for starters. When a person takes their meaning for their own, it transforms from impersonal to personal, and in the process made singular and disparate from the generalised meaning of that social label. Which is why I don't like the term. It's not useless for the same reason language isn't useless.

I do not recognize this interpretation of the thought that everyone must craft his or her own meaning from any existentialist author I have read (nor do I have cause to think Beauvior, based on what I have read of her, should be championing such an interpretation).First of all, each existentialist I've come across distinguishes what one conveys with how one understands themselves with what one is, as in Sartre's example of the man who acts like a waiter (he is in bad faith, because he is actually an existentially free human being, not this self-charicature constructed of waiter tropes). Again, Sartre would say that the person who feels compelled to act 'like a certain gender' or even to 'act trans' for purposes of solving their own identity crisis would be deluding themselves (and I agree on this point). "Self-expression" made by presenting a semblance of oneself where one believes things like their clothes define them is textbook inauthenticity - what people see when they look at another is not something that we should want to have to cater to, and in any case is irrelevant to self-perception.

For starters; Saying one is trans is not a charicature. Also ... No it doesn't. 'Acting trans' is merely self acceptance and conveyance of that self acceptance. It has nothing to do with any tropes that you think applies here. Life is the project of yourself. 'Being trans' has about much fundamental 'sameness' as any other human condition. It also meshes well with his idea of transcendence vs. facticity.

Given that there can never be an objective dimension of the self, it doesn't matter. A waiter is a specific thing. Being trans is merely a subjective dimension of self provided as reference to one's self-constructed nature. Also, thinkng of oneself as a waiter is bad, as per B&N ... thinking of oneself means nothing beyond the conveyance of self. That's why I say you don't seem to understand.

(Edit) The act of being is seperate from the act of another's subjective 'stolen' sense of your self. I agree insofar that other people's opinions of what you are if you say you are trans is bad. But the act of describing self seperate from tropes is not.

The act of being is directly attached to a person's sense of doing. Life is projection of self. But it's not bad to articulate this as a form of validating self. At least in its basic sense.

 

[TWRule]

Snip.

I've read way more of what you've said than I really need to so as to understand where you seem to be coming from. But there is a singular and massive thing you're ignoring here. Humans by nature are a social animal.

I've been focusing here on self-understanding - that shouldn't imply that I was neglecting the social aspect of existence. The problem here is that 'the social', in the way you and other posters here invoke it, is being reduced to a very specific way language can be used - where categorical labels are attributed to persons as if they could be limited to the status of stable, essential object.

Being different by it self doesn't convey anything anyone understands, except for with in one's own mind. ... Unless we magically become a purely psychic and empathic race who can communicate entirely through thought, then we'll have to settle for our limits. That means labels and explanations of self, which also means framing ourselves in a manner that others can understand.

This is what I mean; why should we expect that communication is limited to the use of labels like this? Perhaps a great deal of linguistic concepts are universals (categories that cast an umbrella which can never adequately/thoroughly describe a person), but that's not all there is to language. Look into another human being's eyes without saying a word: isn't something being communicated there? Isn't the very manifest difference between *you* and *I* coming to light in that interaction? That difference is already one far more fundamental than any label could hope to approximate. Even when we use explicit words, what makes us think we should ever need to play this specific game of language where "I am trans" would be an appropriate utterance? The fact that people do initiate that game at times doesn't mean it is one essential to anyone's identity. Let's not try to see limits where none exist.

Being transgender conveys at the very minimum to other people, using my self as an example, means I do not conform to typical ideas of what makes a man or a woman.

Okay - the same could be said of me, even though I would not identify myself in any situation as a 'transperson' (unless it was explicitly stipulated in advance that 'transperson' meant 'one who does not conform to typical ideas of what makes a man or woman'). Notice that I can convey the same message without having to invoke the categorical term - meaning that if anything is 'liberating' about such a situation, it has nothing to do with self-attribution of the label. What's wrong with the fact that I would be expected to explain to someone that I do not so conform (again, with no categorical terms needed)?

Defining ones self as transgender is liberating in the fact that it's a label that means others can understand. So even if I'm different to usual application of the label, at the very least I have a starting point to convey myself to others.

Employing vague categorical terms that have to themselves be thoroughly explained to be truly understood does not make either for an effective 'starting point' in such a conversation, nor does it provide understanding - at best, it provides the other person with an illusion of understanding what you mean to convey. More than likely, they have not understood you. Even if they did understand it - I still do not see where the 'liberating' aspect comes in. Do you feel liberated when a legal document asks for your gender, provides a box labeled 'trans', and allows you to check it? Of course not. But that's is effectively what you'd be doing when having this conversation with a person directly too. At best, you've staved off their frustrated anger for not immediately understanding what box to put you in - but as I've said before - it's better that they be allowed to be frustrated.

If you want to cram all of this in to existential philosophy you're gonna end up with a nebulous mass that means nothing, because you can't convey self in that manner with the limits we have.

I'm not sure what you mean here - existential philosophy has gone leaps and bounds further in articulating the vastness and depth of human existential freedom that I have here, and shown that language can also go much further in discussing our nature than you give it credit for. If our language is often clumsy in seizing upon a reality which we can otherwise sense - the reality of what we are - then that is perhaps an unfortunate aspect of the human condition. I, however, don't think we need to underestimate either the extent of language, or of our own powers.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Snip.

I've read way more of what you've said than I really need to so as to understand where you seem to be coming from. But there is a singular and massive thing you're ignoring here. Humans by nature are a social animal.

I've been focusing here on self-understanding - that shouldn't imply that I was neglecting the social aspect of existence. The problem here is that 'the social', in the way you and other posters here invoke it, is being reduced to a very specific way language can be used - where categorical labels are attributed to persons as if they could be limited to the status of stable, essential object.

No you're insisting that existentialism applies totally to the real world. Which means you're too lost in philosophy to understand the sociological component. I can't be a unique me without first a reference point. You insist that the reference points are invalid. There is a serious disconnect from how humans work socially there, if you reject it then you reject relating to other people. In which case you really can't reference human nature. Therefore any point you make is moot for understanding on an interpersonal level.

Edit: To be clear to understand myself as a person I have to understand how other people see me. If I can't make that connection than my identity is alien to the world in which I live. Remember that as a social animal humans define ourselves by what others can identify, if we didn't we wouldn't be social.

 

[TWRule]

No you're insisting that existentialism applies totally to the real world. Which means you're too lost in philosophy to understand the sociological component.

Every philosophy insists that it applies totally to the real world, otherwise it would not be philosophy. This is a different view from any 'sociological' view, true, but that doesn't mean it ignores the phenomena of the social world. I'm still not sure what you think I'm supposedly leaving out.

I can't be a unique me without first a reference point.

By 'reference point', do you mean something like a distinction between yourself and others? Because that seems to be in place well before we ever even think to 'label' ourselves. In fact, the practice of labeling presupposes that more fundamental distinction between self and others. That same distinction is also reaffirmed even when one person addresses another person without using any words.

You insist that the reference points are invalid.

If 'reference point' can mean the sort of fundamental distinction I've just discussed above, then I certainly did not insist this. If you meant something else by 'reference point', then you'll have to clarify what we are talking about here. I have already asked in this thread how a categorical term like 'trans' can even serve as a 'starting point' and what that means - though so far I don't feel as though I've gotten a clear answer. But you seem to be identifying "reference points" with "social categorical terms like 'transperson'" without clearly explaining this move.

There is a serious disconnect from how humans work socially there, if you reject it then you reject relating to other people. In which case you really can't reference human nature. Therefore any point you make is moot for understanding on an interpersonal level.

I admit I have a hard time following your train of thought here at all. Your thought as I understand it seems to boil down to: if I claim that social categorical labels are thought of as meaningless when constructing self-understanding, and conveying the reality of that self or understanding to others, then I must also claim that all social interactions are either impossible or meaningless. That simply does not follow. If that is not your thought, then please enlighten me.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Every philosophy insists that it applies totally to the real world, otherwise it would not be philosophy. This is a different view from any 'sociological' view, true, but that doesn't mean it ignores the phenomena of the social world. I'm still not sure what you think I'm supposedly leaving out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

Actually, Hume's Guillotine is a pretty big thing in philosophy... Not only that, Nietzsche.

There's also the 'Appeal to Nature' fallacy, which can be applied to metaethics occasionally.

 

[TWRule]

Every philosophy insists that it applies totally to the real world, otherwise it would not be philosophy. This is a different view from any 'sociological' view, true, but that doesn't mean it ignores the phenomena of the social world. I'm still not sure what you think I'm supposedly leaving out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

Actually, Hume's Guillotine is a pretty big thing in philosophy... Not only that, Nietzsche.

There's also the 'Appeal to Nature' fallacy, which can be applied to metaethics occasionally.

I'm honestly not sure what you mean to imply here...how is this relevant to what I've said?

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I'm honestly not sure what you mean to imply here...how is this relevant to what I've said?

Because it's important to note that whilst there can only ever be a subjective dimension of self, we as social beings are forced to levy judgements. THe metaphysics of a school of philosophy do not correlate to a correct sense of being, but rather arming us to perform the act of self consistent with beliefs and capabilities in our place and time.

This is why I challenged your assessment of what the statement 'I am trans' actually means. We're social beings, to exist only in metaphysics of a school of philosophy does not correlate to effective prescriptions of actions in a world that is, by definition, chaotic as per the very definitions of existentialism.

(Edit) As Nietzsche put it; one does not simply become the Overman.

 

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[TWRule]

I'm honestly not sure what you mean to imply here...how is this relevant to what I've said?

Because it's important to note that whilst there can only ever be a subjective dimension of self, we as social beings are forced to levy judgements. THe metaphysics of a school of philosophy do not correlate to a correct sense of being, but rather arming us to perform the act of self consistent with beliefs and capabilities in our place and time.

This is why I challenged your assessment of what the statement 'I am trans' actually means. We're social beings, to exist only in metaphysics of a school of philosophy does not correlate to effective prescriptions of actions in a world that is, by definition, chaotic as per the very definitions of existentialism.

(Edit) As Nietzsche put it; one does not simply become the Overman.

I'm having an extreme amount of difficulty following your ideas because of the way you're choosing to try to express them...

If (and I admit I'm reaching here) you mean to say that the world is not as a philosophy says it is but just projected meaning on what is alien and meaningless...that too is a philosophical move and potentially a metaphysical projection, by your own lights...in which case I'm not sure what the problem is with what I've said.

You seem to be making an effort to take my earlier statement out of context; it was in response to the notion that a philosophical view of the world is not a sociological view - which I accepted and argued that there is nothing wrong with that in the context of how I've made my arguments so far.

None of this has to do with the 'is/ought' gap - my position begins from an argument that we ought to see the world a certain way (and so I am not arguing from some purportedly objective viewpoint that we the world is metaphysically a certain way that we need to live in harmony with). It has even less to do with Nietzsche's overman - I'm not sure why you referenced that...and, by the way, you're the first person that I've ever heard attribute the idea that 'the world is chaotic' to the foundation of existentialism broadly construed, rather than to Nietzsche's thought specifically...I don't see anything necessitating chaos in the famous fundamental maxim of existentialism: 'existence precedes essence'.

TLDR: I have no idea what you're on about.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I'm having an extreme amount of difficulty following your ideas because of the way you're choosing to try to express them...

Mainly because I quote other philosophers and you tell me you haven't read them. You also got the basics wrong about Sartre's B&N failing to understand bad faith. So I decided to just go for a mealy mouthed response in how what you think is how the world ought to be seen does not correlate into a natural prescription of what is to be seen as correct.

I expanded on this three or four posts up. I suggest you tackle those challenges.

Also, Nietzsche has everything to do with the sociological perspective that Kyuubi is talking about.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Well, depends what you mean by anti-trans. We don't have many "kill them all" sorts, but we've got plenty who actively don't care about people who are.

I feel this is an odd statement and write it off as either me not reading it right or you making a brain fart.

Because you don't become anti something because you don't actively care about something. There are many things I don't actively care about, does that make me anti all those things?

 

[TWRule]

I'm having an extreme amount of difficulty following your ideas because of the way you're choosing to try to express them...

Mainly because I quote other philosophers and you tell me you haven't read them. You also got the basics wrong about Sartre's B&N failing to understand bad faith. So I decided to just go for a mealy mouthed response in how what you think is how the world ought to be seen does not correlate into a natural prescription of what is to be seen as correct.

I expanded on this three or four posts up. I suggest you tackle those challenges.

Also, Nietzsche has everything to do with the sociological perspective that Kyuubi is talking about.

No, thanks - I'd rather leave you to your superior knowledge of those philosophers. Clearly I am just going to 'get the basics wrong' in my fumbling about. I had better work out these concepts with other wretched plebs like myself, since I apparently can't hope to approach anything like your perspicuous grasp of advanced philosophical ideas.

In other words, I think it's safe to say that you and I have no reason to continue this exchange - good day.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Well, depends what you mean by anti-trans. We don't have many "kill them all" sorts, but we've got plenty who actively don't care about people who are.

I feel this is an odd statement and write it off as either me not reading it right or you making a brain fart.

Because you don't become anti something because you don't actively care about something. There are many things I don't actively care about, does that make me anti all those things?

I didn't mean "don't actively care", I meant "actively don't care". There are some people who are very passionate about not caring about certain issues, if you see what I mean.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

I feel this is an odd statement and write it off as either me not reading it right or you making a brain fart.

Because you don't become anti something because you don't actively care about something. There are many things I don't actively care about, does that make me anti all those things?

I didn't mean "don't actively care", I meant "actively don't care". There are some people who are very passionate about not caring about certain issues, if you see what I mean.

Yeah, I was about to edit it right now to say I see what you mean, however I still don't think it makes them anti though (they still can be, I don't doubt that) but being anti, doesn't that mean they should be against it and not just don't wanting to care about it?