Other criteria exclude those snakes. The author said:
> But there is a danger in pushing the borders of affiliation so far out that they no longer have any resonance. Placing an emphasis on our mammalian identity is a reasonable compromise between a restrictive anthropocentrism and a vapid all-inclusiveness.
> Mammalian awareness embraces our affinity with our hairy and milky fellow mammals,
Snakes neither have hair nor provide milk to their young.
Uh, yeah, I realize that. I guess maybe I should have said something like "Nifty off topic observation/ did you know?" kind of thing. (Or, you know, kept my mouth shut.)
Do you mean that these are all granfalloons, and fundamentally meaningless?
Otherwise, the type of identity here is the same as the other identify choices mentioned: race, gender, "religion, political party, sexual orientation, even species". (I assume the last includes furries.)
The problem of course is that most people consider some of those to be a karass, making them real enough in our consensus model of the world.
Is this supposed to illustrate the ridiculousness of SJWs and their views on self-identification? If so, it doesn't do it for me. I'm left wondering what is the point of the article.
Is it only me or does anyone else not "identify" as anything (expect my individualistic self)?
I'm a man by biological fact, not by identifying as one. Same with race, species, etc. Personally, I find the idea as someone "identifying" as another sex just as ridiculous as a completely white person "identifying" as black. Fact is, if you're white, no amount of convincing, shaming and delusion will change that.
I feel similarly to the video: My gender is not especially important to me, and it's therefore just kind of 'default', but that doesn't mean other people feel the same way.
Oh, yeah, I totally know that others don't feel that way... I'm aware of the fact that some people identify as a particular gender, that some people think being religious makes sense, or that some people like cucumber.
I just have a rather hard time relating to those people.
> A key assumption in social identity theory is that individuals are intrinsically motivated to achieve positive distinctiveness. That is, individuals “strive for a positive self-concept”.
Are you proud to be an American, where at least you'll know you're free? If so, are you a Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian, or something else?
Are you proud to be Irish? A Son of Scandinavia? A Daughter of the American Revolution? Do you say it loud that you are black and proud?
Are you a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or member in another religion? (You don't need to think it makes sense, only that you follow religious practices.)
Are you a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer? An Aggie? A Boomer Sooner? Proud alumni of Wossamotta U?
Are you a little monster? Juggalo? Parrothead? Deadhead? Belieber? Fanilow? Member of the KISS army?
A sporto, motorhead, geek, slut, blood, wastoid, dweeb, or dickhead?
Fan of any sports team?
Are you a runner? Cyclist? Swimmer? Triathlete? Dancer? Skier?
Trekkie? Trekker? SF fan? Con goer? Filker? Otaku?
Employee? True Blue employee of IBM? When you get cut, do you bleed in 6 colors? Are you an entrepreneur? Agileist? Extreme programmer? RAD programmer?
Citizen? Taxpayer? Loving parent? Faithful child?
While some of these are certainly facts - everyone is a child - identity comes into play when there are actions used to achieve what you consider to be a positive distinctiveness.
For possible examples: you are a Muslim so you fast for Ramadan. You wear the jersey of a favorite sports team. You have figurines from your favorite series on your desk. You fly the flag on independence day. You wear green on St. Patrick's Day. You are Catholic and get marked on the forehead for Ash Wednesday. You call your mother on her birthday because it's something a good child should do. You give money to beggars because it's what a good citizen with a bit of extra money should do. You ... well, you get the idea.
On the flip side, students may be required to run as part of P.E. class. They are "runners" in the sense that they are run, but they might not identify as a "runner" if they don't consider it a positive distinctiveness.
I see from your comments that you consider yourself to be a programmer. It's something you do in your free time. If you had the money to be financially independent, you would do more programming. You are on a discussion forum for "hackers".
Why should I believe that you don't identify as being a programmer?
Do you really not notice how identity issues pervade human culture?
I understand "pride" as a satisfaction about one's own actions and accomplishments, and as such I think that being "proud" to be black, or American, or Irish is stupid; be proud of the decisions you took and of the things you've accomplished, not of the way you were born.
> Are you a Christian, [...] Parrothead, [...] Swimmer, [...] SF fan, [...] entrepreneur, [...], Taxpayer?
Most of these don't denote identity, they are just descriptions that allow us to stereotype people in some way and make better decisions faster. E.g. if I know someone is a Muslim, I can reasonably assume that s/he will observe Ramadan. Or if I know that a person is a Mets fan, I can infer the cause of his/her sadness if I know that Mets lost that day.
I do realize that some people strongly identify with their "identities", but I think that that kind of in-group behaviour originates from a lack of self-confidence and I consider it silly. It also often has very bad consequences, e.g. football hooliganism in the UK.
But in any case, most of the above are choices, not immutable facts. I'm a programmer because I know how to program and I do it often; if I started spending most of my time fishing, I'd be a fisherman instead. Perhaps a better example is the fact I consider myself a "geek"; but again, that's simply because my natural tendencies and interests fit the stereotypical description of a geek, and I distinguish true geeks (like myself or e.g. comic books fans) from the people that want to be geeks just because it's cool (e.g. because of Zuckerberg, or the influence of Big Bang Theory, or because it pays well) without actually having geeky interests.
Most of the above are fundamentally different from biological facts such as sex and race, in the sense that they arise from our choices, and can change over time. Instead, some people want to make sex a choice as well, so they made up the concept of "gender", and they intentionally conflate these concepts by suing the same categories (man/male can mean either sex or gender for them). Personally, I'm perfectly OK with a man being feminine, dressing up in stereotypically women's clothing, fitting the traditionally female social roles, etc. But he's still a man, biologically.
Not sure if this comment makes much sense, I just tried to gather a few thoughts I had about your comment.
Your views are your views. My examples were to give a hint of the identities that exist. Be aware that others do strongly disagree with you. Suppose my father had risked his life before I was born in order to save 25 people. I could be proud of his actions even though I had nothing to with it. If you do not call that feeling "pride", then do you have a better name? Or is your point that I should not have or express those feelings?
The gay pride parade in San Francisco, for example, is a celebration of the "the rebellion of LGBT patrons of the Stonewall Inn in New York City’s Greenwich Village in response to a routine police raid on June 27, 1969." In general, it is in honor of the many people who fought for rights and recognition, and support for those who still face difficulties in being LGBT in more than the descriptive name you want it to be. Eg, see http://chrisstedman.religionnews.com/2014/11/04/gay-pride-at... and http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2014/11/01/peter-boghossia... .
I believe it is both reasonable and appropriate to feel pride in those cases, even though it was not the product of direct work by those who feel pride. I think you will find that your views are in the small minority. Australian Prime Minister Rudd was "absolutely proud" of the Australian involvement in Gallipoli campaign, which happened decades before he was born. Similarly, US President Reagan, on the 40th anniversary of D-Day said of those who died while he was living in California, 'We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.'
> Most of these don't denote identity, they are just descriptions
Yes, that's what I wrote.
I then followed it up with "identity comes into play when there are actions used to achieve what you consider to be a positive distinctiveness." I even gave an example of the difference between 'runner' as a description and 'runner' as part of an identity.
> E.g. if I know someone is a Muslim, I can reasonably assume that s/he will observe Ramadan
You have just described an example of identity.
People will often say that the newborn of two Muslim people is itself Muslim. That is a description.
When that child grows up, and voluntarily follows the rules around Ramadan, then ask that person "why are you fasting during the day?" The answer will be some variation of "I'm Muslim, and that's what we do".
That's both description and identity.
> Most of the above are fundamentally different from biological facts such as sex and race
Without loss of generality, I will assume that you were born biologically male. I agree, that is not identity, that is description.
Now you are an adult. Why do you not wear dresses, skirts, and other clothes that are typically worn only by women? For example, if you could get a nice blouse and skirt combination which fit you well, for only $80, how much more would you be willing to spend to get a shirt and slacks? And why?
We apply the name "transvestite" or "cross-dresser" for those people who dress in clothing that is typically used by the other gender. This can be purely descriptive. Perhaps you wear skirts because they are cheaper than slacks. Male train drivers in Stockholm wore skirts because the temperatures were too hot and the dress code allows skirts but not shorts. But if you ask a dress-wearing male why he is wearing a dress, and the answer is something like "I like the look", then that's positive and intri...
Completely off-topic, but i wanted to applaud the patient and thorough response to the gender-is-not-a-thing comment. I can only aspire to your patience and erudition :)
Thanks for this reply; it appears you spent a lot of time on it, and I appreciate it. I agree with some of your points and most of your examples, but on certain points my interpretations are different; I'll try to reply to your arguments and explain what I think.
1. Race. I agree that to a large extent, "race" is defined and interpreted by humans, and there is no clear biological distinction, and whatever categories we try define are very fuzzy, overlapping and changing. However, in my view there is a clearly obvious biological fact that there are distinct races, e.g. white, black, Asian [1] [2]. Sure, the categories are somewhat arbitrary and were made up largely to group large numbers of similar people together, but I nevertheless find the concept of race useful. For example, it can be used as a description ("the black man" if there is one black and one white person), or to make certain assumptions (e.g. in Slovenia, a black or Asian person is almost invariable a foreigner, so I'd use English to address them). Also, I agree that the concept itself is a bit controversial, both because there are more and more people of mixed race, and that people use race to make useless, harmful distinctions (e.g. "black people are criminals", or "whites with dreads are appropriating black culture", or "my skin is white but I identify as black" as I mentioned before).
2. Geek. I don't see "geek" as my identity, but merely as a description; the description, of course, could instead be elaborated into "likes computers, dislikes group sports, introverted" and so on, but given that there are so many people that share this attributes that they even form groups and share common experiences and culture, a description such as "geek" is useful. In contrast, if someone is using "geek" just as an identity (i.e. "I don't like computers, I like sports, and I'm really extroverted, but I'm still a geek") without otherwise fitting the description, I find that pretentious and fake and hence I dislike it.
Note that not everyone might agree with above description of what constitutes a "geek" - even I could list many more attributes and I agree that not every geek fits all of them; but it's the same way with many other terms that nevertheless have broad, common usage, e.g. "object-oriented programming" [3] ; and they're still useful, in the sense that most people would agree with "C is less OO than Java, which is less OO than Python".
Temporally, I'm not particularly attached to the word "geek". In particular, if my preferences ever change, I'll gladly admit that I no longer fit the stereotype of a "geek" and adopt a different fitting description shortcut. Admittedly, I'm probably less of a geek now then I used to be, because I've tried to be less introverted (not necessarily because it's my preference, but because I find it useful in achieving other goals); I still like math though :) Also, I'm perfectly happy if the word "geek" was used in a different way in the past (c.f. "gay"), or if it ever changes in the future. I would object a forceful redefinition of the word, such as what some people are attempting to do with "man"/"woman", because I perceive that as a political statement, indicative of a sort of "holier-than-thou" belief. Then again, my opposition to the redefinition of words is just as mu...
> in my view there is a clearly obvious biological fact that there are distinct races
Biologists for the large part disagree with you. The examples you gave derive from a cultural interpretation based on certain phenotypes. It has no biological fact any more than saying that some dogs are short-haired and others are long-haired.
If it's not clearly obvious to biologists, then it's much more likely that you do not understand the issue.
> I don't see "geek" as my identity
As far as I can tell, you don't recognize the existence of identity as a principle, which leads you to reject the idea that you have multiple identities. The reason why issues of identity don't concern you is that you seem to be part of a well known, large, and easily recognized subculture. You don't have to explain yourself to anyone because your identity is obvious to others.
But look at the terms 'pretentious and fake' that you used. They are terms of identity, eg, people who act above their station are pretentious. An equivalent term not based in identity would be "incorrect", as in "I find that incorrect and hence I dislike it."
Or look at how you reject the idea of sports geeks, like http://thesportsgeeks.com/ . If you ever saw the series "Sports Night", the character Jeremy Goodwin is a portrayal of a sports geek.
> I would object a forceful redefinition of the word ["geek"], such as what some people are attempting to do with "man"/"woman"
I get the idea that you are a social conservative, who believes that the terms you grew up with are somehow the correct terms and should not change. The problem is that terms, culture, and people change. The change is most obvious as a baby grows into adulthood and decides which identities to take on.
The term "geek", of course, has changed several times. I don't know what "forceful" means. Is a geek pride day 'forceful'? Quoting from a 1998 article at https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1933&dat=19980416&id=... - "Dorks of the world, unite! ... Pocket-protectors are recommended ... it's time for geeks to come out of the cubicle ... 'There's a real pent-up desire to come forward'". Are the Stonewall Riots, which were part of the events that helped redefine "gay", not forceful?
How did the term "geek" change, if not by force? Because I lived through the era when "geek", "nerd", and "dork" where synonymous, and movies like "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Real Genius" helped redefine what those terms meant in popular culture.
> You can totally be proud of actions of other people ... I don't think that you're justified about feeling better about yourself just because your ancestors are great
It appears that you have changed your mind. Earlier you said 'I understand "pride" as a satisfaction about one's own actions and accomplishments, and as such I think that being "proud" to be black, or American, or Irish is stupid; be proud of the decisions you took and of the things you've accomplished, not of the way you were born.'
How do you reconcile your view that pride must be due to 'satisfaction about one's own actions and accomplishments' with your acceptance that someone may be 'proud of actions of other people'? Because to me it sounds like you don't have a good understanding for yourself of what pride means, and end up by using an argument that I've otherwise seen used mostly to dismiss "gay pride", "Indian pride", "black pride", "geek...
In your previous comment, you demonstrated a much better understanding, and your arguments were likewise much better. This one sounds almost as an attack!
> Biologists for the large part disagree with you. It has no biological fact any more than saying that some dogs are short-haired and others are long-haired.
Either those biologists also deny that dogs have breeds and are painfully stupid, or they use "biological fact" differently than I do (I use it in the sense of "genetics").
> The reason why issues of identity don't concern you is that you seem to be part of a well known, large, and easily recognized subculture. You don't have to explain yourself to anyone because your identity is obvious to others.
I've no idea what you're trying to say here. I've been an abused "minority" most of my youth (before being a "geek" became cool), and I never had the need to explain myself. Most of those who scream about "identity" are not very tiny subcultures either.
> But look at the terms 'pretentious and fake' that you used. They are terms of identity, eg, people who act above their station are pretentious.
I use "pretentious" to mean "trying to impress by pretending", which is pretty much the dictionary definition that has nothing to do with identity.
> I get the idea that you are a social conservative, who believes that the terms you grew up with are somehow the correct terms and should not change.
If you say so... although I'm not convinced - I'm exactly the opposite of Wikipedia's description ("opposition to abortion, LGBT rights, gender equality"). I just oppose the politicization of speech; I oppose Pluto not being a planet any more and the widespread use of the word "terrorist" in media for the same reason.
> How did the term "geek" change, if not by force?
Was the mainstream media screaming that the term should be used in a certain way, and shaming those who disobeyed?
> Because I lived through the era when "geek", "nerd", and "dork" where synonymous, and movies like "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Real Genius" helped redefine what those terms meant in popular culture.
Aren't "geek" and "nerd" still synonyms? The only usage of "dork" I'm familiar with is as an insult, but then I'm not from the US so I haven't been exposed to the term a lot. The change of the meaning over generations isn't forceful, people simply die off.
> How do you reconcile your view that pride must be due to 'satisfaction about one's own actions and accomplishments' with your acceptance that someone may be 'proud of actions of other people'?
When you say "I'm proud of him", I understand that as (a) you think he can be proud of his accomplishments, or (b) you're proud of the influence you had on him that resulted in his accomplishments (e.g. parents being proud of their children). Being "proud of MLK" is fine, what he did was amazing, but being "proud to be black" is, as you suggested, illogical and unreasonable.
> As a reminder, the definition of "identity" I gave was in regards to 'what you consider to be a positive distinctiveness'.
This was regarding pride, not identity. Obviously, if we accept the premise that people should be proud of something they didn't do, they should also be ashamed of things they didn't do. Both of which are ridiculous.
>The difficulty with your purely descriptive interpretation is that it has no predictive power. [...] My identity is so tied in to being a programmer that I don't think I would accept even 3x my salary to stop being a programmer. [...] Your descriptive framework has no way to evaluate an emotional reaction like mine. [...] You exp...
> Either those biologists also deny that dogs have breeds and are painfully stupid, or they use "biological fact" differently than I do (I use it in the sense of "genetics").
Or, they recognize that the phenotype variations on which humans assign labels of "race" have less to do with the real genetic variations in the population than you (and many others, to be fair) assume. Traditional concepts of race have some correlation with genetic reality (in that both are correlated with geography of ancestry), but the idea you raise of a "biological fact" of "distinct races" is inaccurate.
Or, as one paper put it:
Genetic variation is geographically structured, as expected from the partial isolation of human population during much of their history. Because traditional concepts of race are in turn correlated with geography, it is inaccurate to state that race is "biologically meaningless." On the other hand, because they have been only partially isolated, human populations are seldom demarcated by precise genetic boundaries. Substantial overlap can therefore occur between populations, invalidating the concept that populations (or races) are discrete types. [0]
[0] Royal, Charmaine DM, and Georgia M. Dunston. "Changing the paradigm from 'race' to human genome variation." Nature genetics 36 (2004): S5-S7.
> Oh, I'm definitely not saying that different races are distinct
Then its very odd to suggest that those who disagree with the claim that "there is a clearly obvious biological fact that there are distinct races" are "painfully stupid"; that the concept and perception of race has a loose correlation to real genetic variation, and that descriptors of race may occasionally have use (even in a biological context), is a very different thing than a "clearly obvious biological fact that there are distinct races".
Equally odd as suggesting that there are obviously distinct sexes and that sex is a biological fact... i.e. not odd at all. Just because not all people are either men or women, doesn't mean that the categories are nonsensical or useless. Same goes for race.
> in my view there is a clearly obvious biological fact that there are distinct races
Or is it:
> Oh, I'm definitely not saying that different races are distinct [...] But that doesn't mean that the concept itself isn't useful
Because you started with the first, retreated to the second in the face of evidence that the first wasn't true, and then have come around to this weird position where you seem to say that the second justifies the first (despite the fact that they directly contradict each other.)
There are men. There are women. These people belong to different, distinct sexes. There are people who are both/neither/mixed.
There are people who are black. There are people who are white. There are people who are Asian. These people belong to different, distinct races. There are also people who are of mixed race.
Of course, different people and cultures are going to perceive races and sexes differently... For example, Obama is black in the US but would probably be white in Kenya. Similarly, it used to be the case that doctors would operate on mixed-sex children and make them single-sex (usually female), but now they often leave them mixed-sex. Regardless, there appears to be practically no confusion about the non-ambiguous single-sex and single-race people.
The biology you describe for race identification is based on phenotypes, interpreted through culture. It has no deeper genetic basis.
So yes, the popular views of race are based in biology, as they have for hundreds of years. But the choice for what constitutes a race is arbitrary. It could been on hair type, or eye color, or height, or relative length of the fingers, or blood type or any of many other factors. If you choose a different set of factors, you end up with different races. Is there an Irish Race, as in https://archive.org/details/storyofirishrace00macmrich ? And of course the Aryan race - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_race - has long been the favorite of scientific racism.
In US history, look at Bhagat Singh Thind. His US citizenship was challenge in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) because, while pure Aryan, and Caucasian, he wasn't white.
The laws at the time said only "free white persons" and "aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent" could become United States citizens by naturalization.
> Associate Justice George Sutherland said that authorities on the subject of race were in disagreement over which people were included in the scientific definition of the Caucasian race, so Sutherland instead chose to rely on the common understanding of race rather than the scientific understanding of race.[4] Sutherland found that, while Thind may claim to have "purity of Aryan blood" due to being "born in Village Taragarh Talawa near Jandiala Guru, Amritsar, Punjab" and having "high caste" status, he was not Caucasian in the "common understanding", so he could not be included in the "statutory category as white persons".[6] The Court reiterated its holding in [Ozawa v. United States],[citation needed] explaining that the words "free white person" in the naturalization act were "synonymous with the word ‘Caucasian’ only as that word is popularly understood," pointing out that the statutory language was to be interpreted as "words of common speech and not of scientific origin, . . . written in the common speech, for common understanding, by unscientific men."
So while it's true that biological factors have long been used to assign race, the choice of which factors to use as you yourself say is socially determined. Hence race is socially constructed.
There's no useful genetic basis for saying there is a "black" race, other than as an expression of a phenotype. The diversity of people with black skin is entirely too large for that characterization to be useful.
Stop using definitions of race that were discredited decades ago.
What emotion you hear is one of tiredness. Everything I write has been written up in more depth elsewhere. I provided links to some. I don't particular want to follow up on a discussion about the lack of a genetic basis for race when the Wikipedia link I gave covers it in detail, but I persevere. As you read from the Wikipedia link:
> There is a wide consensus that the racial categories that are common in everyday usage are socially constructed, and that racial groups cannot be biologically defined
> "Race" thus evolved as a worldview, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behavior. Racial beliefs constitute myths about the diversity in the human species and about the abilities and behavior of people homogenized into "racial" categories. The myths fused behavior and physical features together in the public mind, impeding our comprehension of both biological variations and cultural behavior, implying that both are genetically determined. Racial myths bear no relationship to the reality of human capabilities or behavior. Scientists today find that reliance on such folk beliefs about human differences in research has led to countless errors.
Yes, I believe you are making an error by assuming that "race" is meaningful in this discussion. (We are not talking about forensic anthropology, which is one of the few contexts where it has some meaning.)
Most emphatically, "black" is not a meaningful racial category. Black skin is only one of many phenotypes that could be used to split up people into groups. Why not blood type (which is a discrimination issue in Japan)? Ear shape? Lactase persistence?
What you call 'breeds' for dogs would correspond more to the ethnic Icelanders or the Ashkenazi Jews, who are often studied because of their relatively isolated genetic heritage. It does not correspond to race.
At this this point it's up to you to demonstrate - with reference to recent peer-reviewed literature and not imagery from decades old text books or pop culture magazines - that there is a useful genetic definition behind race. I've provided plenty of evidence to back my position. It seems to me that all you have is your belief that you are right.
Quoting now from you:
> I never had the need to explain myself
That is not strong counter-evidence. A nun, wearing a habit, does not need to explain to people that she is a member of a religious order. A beggar on the street doesn't have to explain the role of a beggar. If you fit into your cultural role, and especially if it is a culturally acceptable role, then there's little need to explain yourself.
Do note that I wrote "well known, large, and easily recognized subculture". You somehow interpreted that to exclude minority groups. It does not. A minority group, like blacks in the US, can still meet my qualifiers. An example of a minority group which does not is the Hmong population in the US.
> proud to be black
I do not believe that you have read the links I gave, which explain why it is incorrect to interpret this as 'I am proud to have black skin'; though the links were about LGBT and not black skin, the principle is the same. I shall quote from the second of those links:
> LGBT pride does not mean being proud of having been born lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans.
> It means being proud of having survived.
> It means being proud of living in a homophobic, biphobic, transphobic society — a society that commonly treats us with contempt at best and violent hatred at worst — and still getting on with our lives. It means being proud of flourishing, in a society that commonly thinks we’re broken.
> Social conservatism is a group of political ideologies centred around preserving traditional beliefs, attitudes and philosophy, in the face of social progressivism. The aims of social conservatism vary from organisation to organisation, and from country to country.
That is the definition I was meaning. The one you quoted refers specifically to social conservatism in the United States, which is only a facet of what social conservatism means as a general term.
As social conservatism is a rather vague definition, I explained my meaning further as 'believes that the terms you grew up with are somehow the correct terms and should not change'. This is 'preserving traditional beliefs, attitudes and philosophy', yes? And I believe you consider this aspect of social progressivism as politicization of speech, so I still believe I used the term correctly, and compatible with the Wikipedia definition.
Quoting again from you:
> Was the mainstream media screaming that the term should be used in a certain way, and shaming those who disobeyed?
I have no idea of what you're talking about. The other term was "gay", yes? Yes, I believe there was a concerted effort by the LGBTQ movement to use the word "gay" (or "lesbian and gay") instead of "homosexual", and that made its way into mainstream media. You can see a reflection of that in Google n-grams: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=gay%2Clesbian%... . But I don't know what 'screaming' and 'shaming' has to do with the mainstreaming of the term 'gay', and suspect you are alluding to something else entirely.
Of the Big 6 that make up mainstream media in the US, I'm aware of how News Corporation screams and shames people for wanting to use terms (like "marriage") in new contexts. Is that what you are referring to?
> What you call identity I call preferences
If you wish to accept it that way, then feel free. Whenever you hear someone say "I identify as a man" then translate it as "I strongly prefer to take on the cultural roles more commonly associated with males." When you here someone say "I am a Muslim" then translate it as "I strongly prefer to follow Muslim customs".
Be sure to always think of it as a "strong preference", in roughly the same way that "strong folkways" become "mores" when talking about social norms. It's different enough to warrant its own term.
> I avoid clothing that would be too much of a statement
So like many geeks, part of your identity is to not make a statement through your clothes. This is itself a statement. Others can look at your clothes to infer you might be a geek. Thus your clothing choice helps establish your identity so you don't have to explain it to people.
> I observe or discover them
Remember that everyone else is as disinterested and objective as you are. Just about everyone thinks they've made a rational, objective decision for how to reach their goals.
Also note that your choice of goals are part of your identity. Some people born female have the goal of taking on traditionally male gender roles, and they do the best actions they can to achieve those goals.<...
Nobody else seems to be very positive on this article, so I'll shoot: This article puts into words something that I've always intuitively felt, and very articulately as well. I think it particularly hits the nail on the head when it notes that "Thinking of ourselves as primates strikes a little too close to home. It’s like being told you look like your brother; nobody wants to hear it."
The only addendum I would make is that I feel there ought to be some place in this viewpoint for avians as well; I can't justify it on the basis of biological similarity, but it's something I feel all the same.
I agree. It puts things into perspective when you consider just how many similarities are shared between yourself and your cat or dog, or even rodents.
The mammal and birds that everyone thinks of first are "charismatic". Mammals, especially the young, look cute to us. (Cuteness appears to be tied to neoteny.) You'll note that the three mammals after the primate quote are bear, squirrel, and whale. Two of the three are on the charismatic megafauna list, and squirrels are often considered cute.
Later on there's "pigs, whales and naked mole rats". Of the mammal species listed, only is an unfamiliar animal, and rarely considered cute.
Too bad more non-cute mammals weren't on the list. How many people think of the promiscuous monkey, or the Philippine tarsier - both primates - as being 'close to home'? What of bats, and the brown rat?
I think most people would identify with many avians before identifying with a bat.
I don't think this article is relevant or convincing. None of the arguments were particularly good and the author gave me no reason to care. I expect a higher standard of quality on hacker news.
Years ago, I got a copy, and read it from cover to cover. After however many pages of bacteria and protoctista, dozens of phyla of weird, unimaginable, almost alien single-celled organisms, I eventually got to the animals. The first phylum is the placozoa, these little guys:
And I felt a surge of emotion. Here, finally, was something like me! After visiting the extraordinary world of single-celled life, placozoa seemed like family.
I find it ironic that in order to remove the false idea of human exceptionalism, a human does what no other species is capable of doing (self-identify as something).
This is not about fair treatment of animals or a "realistic" view of our place in the world. This is about abdicating responsibility. Refusing to admit that human beings are exceptional doesn't elevate the value of animals. It lowers our own. It means that, as mere mammals, we are not reasonably bound to any sort of behavioral code or sense of virtue (including ethical treatment of our kindred animal counterparts). Like it or not, we have the unique ability to make or break this planet and the only way to save it is to hold ourselves to a higher standard, not a lower one.
How in the world does this raise or lower our standards?
I've heard similar arguments before. In fact, we have a long history of people arguing for exceptionalism, only to find that those views are not worth believing.
We should not grant voting rights to women because rather than elevating their position it will lower the exceptional position of men.
We should not grant freedom to black slaves because rather than elevate their position it will lower the exceptional position of white people.
Atheists and apostates reject the the behavioral code set by divine sources and think that humans are mere animals, not exceptional beings endowed by divine sources as good stewards of the Earth. They abdicate responsibility so must be punished.
We are at the center of the universe, and those who say the Earth revolves around the Sun are trying to destroy our exceptional place in the cosmos.
Your argument sounds equally as faulty as those sketches.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 81.9 ms ] threadMonotremes are egg-laying mammals so the author is identifying with placental and/or marsupial mammals, and not mammals as a whole.
("Technically correct - the best kind of correct.")
> But there is a danger in pushing the borders of affiliation so far out that they no longer have any resonance. Placing an emphasis on our mammalian identity is a reasonable compromise between a restrictive anthropocentrism and a vapid all-inclusiveness.
> Mammalian awareness embraces our affinity with our hairy and milky fellow mammals,
Snakes neither have hair nor provide milk to their young.
Otherwise, the type of identity here is the same as the other identify choices mentioned: race, gender, "religion, political party, sexual orientation, even species". (I assume the last includes furries.)
The problem of course is that most people consider some of those to be a karass, making them real enough in our consensus model of the world.
I'm a man by biological fact, not by identifying as one. Same with race, species, etc. Personally, I find the idea as someone "identifying" as another sex just as ridiculous as a completely white person "identifying" as black. Fact is, if you're white, no amount of convincing, shaming and delusion will change that.
This isn't a valid comparison, and it's a really shitty thing to say, to boot.
I would say no.
Care to give us an explanation why? let's have a debate without name calling and insults, maybe you can enlighten the people who do not "get it".
I feel similarly to the video: My gender is not especially important to me, and it's therefore just kind of 'default', but that doesn't mean other people feel the same way.
I just have a rather hard time relating to those people.
> A key assumption in social identity theory is that individuals are intrinsically motivated to achieve positive distinctiveness. That is, individuals “strive for a positive self-concept”.
Are you proud to be an American, where at least you'll know you're free? If so, are you a Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian, or something else?
Are you proud to be Irish? A Son of Scandinavia? A Daughter of the American Revolution? Do you say it loud that you are black and proud?
Are you a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or member in another religion? (You don't need to think it makes sense, only that you follow religious practices.)
Are you a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer? An Aggie? A Boomer Sooner? Proud alumni of Wossamotta U?
Are you a little monster? Juggalo? Parrothead? Deadhead? Belieber? Fanilow? Member of the KISS army?
A sporto, motorhead, geek, slut, blood, wastoid, dweeb, or dickhead?
Fan of any sports team?
Are you a runner? Cyclist? Swimmer? Triathlete? Dancer? Skier?
Trekkie? Trekker? SF fan? Con goer? Filker? Otaku?
Employee? True Blue employee of IBM? When you get cut, do you bleed in 6 colors? Are you an entrepreneur? Agileist? Extreme programmer? RAD programmer?
Citizen? Taxpayer? Loving parent? Faithful child?
While some of these are certainly facts - everyone is a child - identity comes into play when there are actions used to achieve what you consider to be a positive distinctiveness.
For possible examples: you are a Muslim so you fast for Ramadan. You wear the jersey of a favorite sports team. You have figurines from your favorite series on your desk. You fly the flag on independence day. You wear green on St. Patrick's Day. You are Catholic and get marked on the forehead for Ash Wednesday. You call your mother on her birthday because it's something a good child should do. You give money to beggars because it's what a good citizen with a bit of extra money should do. You ... well, you get the idea.
On the flip side, students may be required to run as part of P.E. class. They are "runners" in the sense that they are run, but they might not identify as a "runner" if they don't consider it a positive distinctiveness.
I see from your comments that you consider yourself to be a programmer. It's something you do in your free time. If you had the money to be financially independent, you would do more programming. You are on a discussion forum for "hackers".
Why should I believe that you don't identify as being a programmer?
Do you really not notice how identity issues pervade human culture?
I understand "pride" as a satisfaction about one's own actions and accomplishments, and as such I think that being "proud" to be black, or American, or Irish is stupid; be proud of the decisions you took and of the things you've accomplished, not of the way you were born.
> Are you a Christian, [...] Parrothead, [...] Swimmer, [...] SF fan, [...] entrepreneur, [...], Taxpayer?
Most of these don't denote identity, they are just descriptions that allow us to stereotype people in some way and make better decisions faster. E.g. if I know someone is a Muslim, I can reasonably assume that s/he will observe Ramadan. Or if I know that a person is a Mets fan, I can infer the cause of his/her sadness if I know that Mets lost that day.
I do realize that some people strongly identify with their "identities", but I think that that kind of in-group behaviour originates from a lack of self-confidence and I consider it silly. It also often has very bad consequences, e.g. football hooliganism in the UK.
But in any case, most of the above are choices, not immutable facts. I'm a programmer because I know how to program and I do it often; if I started spending most of my time fishing, I'd be a fisherman instead. Perhaps a better example is the fact I consider myself a "geek"; but again, that's simply because my natural tendencies and interests fit the stereotypical description of a geek, and I distinguish true geeks (like myself or e.g. comic books fans) from the people that want to be geeks just because it's cool (e.g. because of Zuckerberg, or the influence of Big Bang Theory, or because it pays well) without actually having geeky interests.
Most of the above are fundamentally different from biological facts such as sex and race, in the sense that they arise from our choices, and can change over time. Instead, some people want to make sex a choice as well, so they made up the concept of "gender", and they intentionally conflate these concepts by suing the same categories (man/male can mean either sex or gender for them). Personally, I'm perfectly OK with a man being feminine, dressing up in stereotypically women's clothing, fitting the traditionally female social roles, etc. But he's still a man, biologically.
Not sure if this comment makes much sense, I just tried to gather a few thoughts I had about your comment.
Your views are your views. My examples were to give a hint of the identities that exist. Be aware that others do strongly disagree with you. Suppose my father had risked his life before I was born in order to save 25 people. I could be proud of his actions even though I had nothing to with it. If you do not call that feeling "pride", then do you have a better name? Or is your point that I should not have or express those feelings?
The gay pride parade in San Francisco, for example, is a celebration of the "the rebellion of LGBT patrons of the Stonewall Inn in New York City’s Greenwich Village in response to a routine police raid on June 27, 1969." In general, it is in honor of the many people who fought for rights and recognition, and support for those who still face difficulties in being LGBT in more than the descriptive name you want it to be. Eg, see http://chrisstedman.religionnews.com/2014/11/04/gay-pride-at... and http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2014/11/01/peter-boghossia... .
I believe it is both reasonable and appropriate to feel pride in those cases, even though it was not the product of direct work by those who feel pride. I think you will find that your views are in the small minority. Australian Prime Minister Rudd was "absolutely proud" of the Australian involvement in Gallipoli campaign, which happened decades before he was born. Similarly, US President Reagan, on the 40th anniversary of D-Day said of those who died while he was living in California, 'We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.'
> Most of these don't denote identity, they are just descriptions
Yes, that's what I wrote.
I then followed it up with "identity comes into play when there are actions used to achieve what you consider to be a positive distinctiveness." I even gave an example of the difference between 'runner' as a description and 'runner' as part of an identity.
> E.g. if I know someone is a Muslim, I can reasonably assume that s/he will observe Ramadan
You have just described an example of identity.
People will often say that the newborn of two Muslim people is itself Muslim. That is a description.
When that child grows up, and voluntarily follows the rules around Ramadan, then ask that person "why are you fasting during the day?" The answer will be some variation of "I'm Muslim, and that's what we do".
That's both description and identity.
> Most of the above are fundamentally different from biological facts such as sex and race
Without loss of generality, I will assume that you were born biologically male. I agree, that is not identity, that is description.
Now you are an adult. Why do you not wear dresses, skirts, and other clothes that are typically worn only by women? For example, if you could get a nice blouse and skirt combination which fit you well, for only $80, how much more would you be willing to spend to get a shirt and slacks? And why?
We apply the name "transvestite" or "cross-dresser" for those people who dress in clothing that is typically used by the other gender. This can be purely descriptive. Perhaps you wear skirts because they are cheaper than slacks. Male train drivers in Stockholm wore skirts because the temperatures were too hot and the dress code allows skirts but not shorts. But if you ask a dress-wearing male why he is wearing a dress, and the answer is something like "I like the look", then that's positive and intri...
1. Race. I agree that to a large extent, "race" is defined and interpreted by humans, and there is no clear biological distinction, and whatever categories we try define are very fuzzy, overlapping and changing. However, in my view there is a clearly obvious biological fact that there are distinct races, e.g. white, black, Asian [1] [2]. Sure, the categories are somewhat arbitrary and were made up largely to group large numbers of similar people together, but I nevertheless find the concept of race useful. For example, it can be used as a description ("the black man" if there is one black and one white person), or to make certain assumptions (e.g. in Slovenia, a black or Asian person is almost invariable a foreigner, so I'd use English to address them). Also, I agree that the concept itself is a bit controversial, both because there are more and more people of mixed race, and that people use race to make useless, harmful distinctions (e.g. "black people are criminals", or "whites with dreads are appropriating black culture", or "my skin is white but I identify as black" as I mentioned before).
[1] http://econintersect.com/images/2014/11/15608366ztemp.png
[2] http://shirleymaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Beauty1.jp...
2. Geek. I don't see "geek" as my identity, but merely as a description; the description, of course, could instead be elaborated into "likes computers, dislikes group sports, introverted" and so on, but given that there are so many people that share this attributes that they even form groups and share common experiences and culture, a description such as "geek" is useful. In contrast, if someone is using "geek" just as an identity (i.e. "I don't like computers, I like sports, and I'm really extroverted, but I'm still a geek") without otherwise fitting the description, I find that pretentious and fake and hence I dislike it.
Note that not everyone might agree with above description of what constitutes a "geek" - even I could list many more attributes and I agree that not every geek fits all of them; but it's the same way with many other terms that nevertheless have broad, common usage, e.g. "object-oriented programming" [3] ; and they're still useful, in the sense that most people would agree with "C is less OO than Java, which is less OO than Python".
Temporally, I'm not particularly attached to the word "geek". In particular, if my preferences ever change, I'll gladly admit that I no longer fit the stereotype of a "geek" and adopt a different fitting description shortcut. Admittedly, I'm probably less of a geek now then I used to be, because I've tried to be less introverted (not necessarily because it's my preference, but because I find it useful in achieving other goals); I still like math though :) Also, I'm perfectly happy if the word "geek" was used in a different way in the past (c.f. "gay"), or if it ever changes in the future. I would object a forceful redefinition of the word, such as what some people are attempting to do with "man"/"woman", because I perceive that as a political statement, indicative of a sort of "holier-than-thou" belief. Then again, my opposition to the redefinition of words is just as mu...
Biologists for the large part disagree with you. The examples you gave derive from a cultural interpretation based on certain phenotypes. It has no biological fact any more than saying that some dogs are short-haired and others are long-haired.
If it's not clearly obvious to biologists, then it's much more likely that you do not understand the issue.
> I don't see "geek" as my identity
As far as I can tell, you don't recognize the existence of identity as a principle, which leads you to reject the idea that you have multiple identities. The reason why issues of identity don't concern you is that you seem to be part of a well known, large, and easily recognized subculture. You don't have to explain yourself to anyone because your identity is obvious to others.
But look at the terms 'pretentious and fake' that you used. They are terms of identity, eg, people who act above their station are pretentious. An equivalent term not based in identity would be "incorrect", as in "I find that incorrect and hence I dislike it."
Or look at how you reject the idea of sports geeks, like http://thesportsgeeks.com/ . If you ever saw the series "Sports Night", the character Jeremy Goodwin is a portrayal of a sports geek.
> I would object a forceful redefinition of the word ["geek"], such as what some people are attempting to do with "man"/"woman"
I get the idea that you are a social conservative, who believes that the terms you grew up with are somehow the correct terms and should not change. The problem is that terms, culture, and people change. The change is most obvious as a baby grows into adulthood and decides which identities to take on.
The term "geek", of course, has changed several times. I don't know what "forceful" means. Is a geek pride day 'forceful'? Quoting from a 1998 article at https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1933&dat=19980416&id=... - "Dorks of the world, unite! ... Pocket-protectors are recommended ... it's time for geeks to come out of the cubicle ... 'There's a real pent-up desire to come forward'". Are the Stonewall Riots, which were part of the events that helped redefine "gay", not forceful?
How did the term "geek" change, if not by force? Because I lived through the era when "geek", "nerd", and "dork" where synonymous, and movies like "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Real Genius" helped redefine what those terms meant in popular culture.
> You can totally be proud of actions of other people ... I don't think that you're justified about feeling better about yourself just because your ancestors are great
It appears that you have changed your mind. Earlier you said 'I understand "pride" as a satisfaction about one's own actions and accomplishments, and as such I think that being "proud" to be black, or American, or Irish is stupid; be proud of the decisions you took and of the things you've accomplished, not of the way you were born.'
How do you reconcile your view that pride must be due to 'satisfaction about one's own actions and accomplishments' with your acceptance that someone may be 'proud of actions of other people'? Because to me it sounds like you don't have a good understanding for yourself of what pride means, and end up by using an argument that I've otherwise seen used mostly to dismiss "gay pride", "Indian pride", "black pride", "geek...
> Biologists for the large part disagree with you. It has no biological fact any more than saying that some dogs are short-haired and others are long-haired.
Either those biologists also deny that dogs have breeds and are painfully stupid, or they use "biological fact" differently than I do (I use it in the sense of "genetics").
> The reason why issues of identity don't concern you is that you seem to be part of a well known, large, and easily recognized subculture. You don't have to explain yourself to anyone because your identity is obvious to others.
I've no idea what you're trying to say here. I've been an abused "minority" most of my youth (before being a "geek" became cool), and I never had the need to explain myself. Most of those who scream about "identity" are not very tiny subcultures either.
> But look at the terms 'pretentious and fake' that you used. They are terms of identity, eg, people who act above their station are pretentious.
I use "pretentious" to mean "trying to impress by pretending", which is pretty much the dictionary definition that has nothing to do with identity.
> I get the idea that you are a social conservative, who believes that the terms you grew up with are somehow the correct terms and should not change.
If you say so... although I'm not convinced - I'm exactly the opposite of Wikipedia's description ("opposition to abortion, LGBT rights, gender equality"). I just oppose the politicization of speech; I oppose Pluto not being a planet any more and the widespread use of the word "terrorist" in media for the same reason.
> How did the term "geek" change, if not by force?
Was the mainstream media screaming that the term should be used in a certain way, and shaming those who disobeyed?
> Because I lived through the era when "geek", "nerd", and "dork" where synonymous, and movies like "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Real Genius" helped redefine what those terms meant in popular culture.
Aren't "geek" and "nerd" still synonyms? The only usage of "dork" I'm familiar with is as an insult, but then I'm not from the US so I haven't been exposed to the term a lot. The change of the meaning over generations isn't forceful, people simply die off.
> How do you reconcile your view that pride must be due to 'satisfaction about one's own actions and accomplishments' with your acceptance that someone may be 'proud of actions of other people'?
When you say "I'm proud of him", I understand that as (a) you think he can be proud of his accomplishments, or (b) you're proud of the influence you had on him that resulted in his accomplishments (e.g. parents being proud of their children). Being "proud of MLK" is fine, what he did was amazing, but being "proud to be black" is, as you suggested, illogical and unreasonable.
> As a reminder, the definition of "identity" I gave was in regards to 'what you consider to be a positive distinctiveness'.
This was regarding pride, not identity. Obviously, if we accept the premise that people should be proud of something they didn't do, they should also be ashamed of things they didn't do. Both of which are ridiculous.
>The difficulty with your purely descriptive interpretation is that it has no predictive power. [...] My identity is so tied in to being a programmer that I don't think I would accept even 3x my salary to stop being a programmer. [...] Your descriptive framework has no way to evaluate an emotional reaction like mine. [...] You exp...
Or, they recognize that the phenotype variations on which humans assign labels of "race" have less to do with the real genetic variations in the population than you (and many others, to be fair) assume. Traditional concepts of race have some correlation with genetic reality (in that both are correlated with geography of ancestry), but the idea you raise of a "biological fact" of "distinct races" is inaccurate.
Or, as one paper put it:
Genetic variation is geographically structured, as expected from the partial isolation of human population during much of their history. Because traditional concepts of race are in turn correlated with geography, it is inaccurate to state that race is "biologically meaningless." On the other hand, because they have been only partially isolated, human populations are seldom demarcated by precise genetic boundaries. Substantial overlap can therefore occur between populations, invalidating the concept that populations (or races) are discrete types. [0]
[0] Royal, Charmaine DM, and Georgia M. Dunston. "Changing the paradigm from 'race' to human genome variation." Nature genetics 36 (2004): S5-S7.
Edit: But that doesn't mean that the concept itself isn't useful.
Then its very odd to suggest that those who disagree with the claim that "there is a clearly obvious biological fact that there are distinct races" are "painfully stupid"; that the concept and perception of race has a loose correlation to real genetic variation, and that descriptors of race may occasionally have use (even in a biological context), is a very different thing than a "clearly obvious biological fact that there are distinct races".
> in my view there is a clearly obvious biological fact that there are distinct races
Or is it:
> Oh, I'm definitely not saying that different races are distinct [...] But that doesn't mean that the concept itself isn't useful
Because you started with the first, retreated to the second in the face of evidence that the first wasn't true, and then have come around to this weird position where you seem to say that the second justifies the first (despite the fact that they directly contradict each other.)
There are men. There are women. These people belong to different, distinct sexes. There are people who are both/neither/mixed.
There are people who are black. There are people who are white. There are people who are Asian. These people belong to different, distinct races. There are also people who are of mixed race.
Of course, different people and cultures are going to perceive races and sexes differently... For example, Obama is black in the US but would probably be white in Kenya. Similarly, it used to be the case that doctors would operate on mixed-sex children and make them single-sex (usually female), but now they often leave them mixed-sex. Regardless, there appears to be practically no confusion about the non-ambiguous single-sex and single-race people.
So yes, the popular views of race are based in biology, as they have for hundreds of years. But the choice for what constitutes a race is arbitrary. It could been on hair type, or eye color, or height, or relative length of the fingers, or blood type or any of many other factors. If you choose a different set of factors, you end up with different races. Is there an Irish Race, as in https://archive.org/details/storyofirishrace00macmrich ? And of course the Aryan race - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_race - has long been the favorite of scientific racism.
In US history, look at Bhagat Singh Thind. His US citizenship was challenge in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) because, while pure Aryan, and Caucasian, he wasn't white.
The laws at the time said only "free white persons" and "aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent" could become United States citizens by naturalization.
In the Supreme Court decision which stripped Thind of his citizenship (quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_... ; emphasis mine):
> Associate Justice George Sutherland said that authorities on the subject of race were in disagreement over which people were included in the scientific definition of the Caucasian race, so Sutherland instead chose to rely on the common understanding of race rather than the scientific understanding of race.[4] Sutherland found that, while Thind may claim to have "purity of Aryan blood" due to being "born in Village Taragarh Talawa near Jandiala Guru, Amritsar, Punjab" and having "high caste" status, he was not Caucasian in the "common understanding", so he could not be included in the "statutory category as white persons".[6] The Court reiterated its holding in [Ozawa v. United States],[citation needed] explaining that the words "free white person" in the naturalization act were "synonymous with the word ‘Caucasian’ only as that word is popularly understood," pointing out that the statutory language was to be interpreted as "words of common speech and not of scientific origin, . . . written in the common speech, for common understanding, by unscientific men."
So while it's true that biological factors have long been used to assign race, the choice of which factors to use as you yourself say is socially determined. Hence race is socially constructed.
There's no useful genetic basis for saying there is a "black" race, other than as an expression of a phenotype. The diversity of people with black skin is entirely too large for that characterization to be useful.
Stop using definitions of race that were discredited decades ago.
> There is a wide consensus that the racial categories that are common in everyday usage are socially constructed, and that racial groups cannot be biologically defined
That quote is followed by several references. The only one which isn't to a book is http://www.americananthro.org/ConnectWithAAA/Content.aspx?It... :
> "Race" thus evolved as a worldview, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behavior. Racial beliefs constitute myths about the diversity in the human species and about the abilities and behavior of people homogenized into "racial" categories. The myths fused behavior and physical features together in the public mind, impeding our comprehension of both biological variations and cultural behavior, implying that both are genetically determined. Racial myths bear no relationship to the reality of human capabilities or behavior. Scientists today find that reliance on such folk beliefs about human differences in research has led to countless errors.
Yes, I believe you are making an error by assuming that "race" is meaningful in this discussion. (We are not talking about forensic anthropology, which is one of the few contexts where it has some meaning.)
Most emphatically, "black" is not a meaningful racial category. Black skin is only one of many phenotypes that could be used to split up people into groups. Why not blood type (which is a discrimination issue in Japan)? Ear shape? Lactase persistence?
What you call 'breeds' for dogs would correspond more to the ethnic Icelanders or the Ashkenazi Jews, who are often studied because of their relatively isolated genetic heritage. It does not correspond to race.
At this this point it's up to you to demonstrate - with reference to recent peer-reviewed literature and not imagery from decades old text books or pop culture magazines - that there is a useful genetic definition behind race. I've provided plenty of evidence to back my position. It seems to me that all you have is your belief that you are right.
Quoting now from you:
> I never had the need to explain myself
That is not strong counter-evidence. A nun, wearing a habit, does not need to explain to people that she is a member of a religious order. A beggar on the street doesn't have to explain the role of a beggar. If you fit into your cultural role, and especially if it is a culturally acceptable role, then there's little need to explain yourself.
Do note that I wrote "well known, large, and easily recognized subculture". You somehow interpreted that to exclude minority groups. It does not. A minority group, like blacks in the US, can still meet my qualifiers. An example of a minority group which does not is the Hmong population in the US.
> proud to be black
I do not believe that you have read the links I gave, which explain why it is incorrect to interpret this as 'I am proud to have black skin'; though the links were about LGBT and not black skin, the principle is the same. I shall quote from the second of those links:
> LGBT pride does not mean being proud of having been born lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans.
> It means being proud of having survived.
> It means being proud of living in a homophobic, biphobic, transphobic society — a society that commonly treats us with contempt at best and violent hatred at worst — and still getting on with our lives. It means being proud of flourishing, in a society that commonly thinks we’re broken.
A...
> I'm exactly the opposite of Wikipedia's description [of social conservative] ("opposition to abortion, LGBT rights, gender equality")
The Wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_conservatism starts:
> Social conservatism is a group of political ideologies centred around preserving traditional beliefs, attitudes and philosophy, in the face of social progressivism. The aims of social conservatism vary from organisation to organisation, and from country to country.
That is the definition I was meaning. The one you quoted refers specifically to social conservatism in the United States, which is only a facet of what social conservatism means as a general term.
As social conservatism is a rather vague definition, I explained my meaning further as 'believes that the terms you grew up with are somehow the correct terms and should not change'. This is 'preserving traditional beliefs, attitudes and philosophy', yes? And I believe you consider this aspect of social progressivism as politicization of speech, so I still believe I used the term correctly, and compatible with the Wikipedia definition.
Quoting again from you:
> Was the mainstream media screaming that the term should be used in a certain way, and shaming those who disobeyed?
I have no idea of what you're talking about. The other term was "gay", yes? Yes, I believe there was a concerted effort by the LGBTQ movement to use the word "gay" (or "lesbian and gay") instead of "homosexual", and that made its way into mainstream media. You can see a reflection of that in Google n-grams: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=gay%2Clesbian%... . But I don't know what 'screaming' and 'shaming' has to do with the mainstreaming of the term 'gay', and suspect you are alluding to something else entirely.
Of the Big 6 that make up mainstream media in the US, I'm aware of how News Corporation screams and shames people for wanting to use terms (like "marriage") in new contexts. Is that what you are referring to?
> What you call identity I call preferences
If you wish to accept it that way, then feel free. Whenever you hear someone say "I identify as a man" then translate it as "I strongly prefer to take on the cultural roles more commonly associated with males." When you here someone say "I am a Muslim" then translate it as "I strongly prefer to follow Muslim customs".
Be sure to always think of it as a "strong preference", in roughly the same way that "strong folkways" become "mores" when talking about social norms. It's different enough to warrant its own term.
> I avoid clothing that would be too much of a statement
So like many geeks, part of your identity is to not make a statement through your clothes. This is itself a statement. Others can look at your clothes to infer you might be a geek. Thus your clothing choice helps establish your identity so you don't have to explain it to people.
> I observe or discover them
Remember that everyone else is as disinterested and objective as you are. Just about everyone thinks they've made a rational, objective decision for how to reach their goals.
Also note that your choice of goals are part of your identity. Some people born female have the goal of taking on traditionally male gender roles, and they do the best actions they can to achieve those goals.<...
The only addendum I would make is that I feel there ought to be some place in this viewpoint for avians as well; I can't justify it on the basis of biological similarity, but it's something I feel all the same.
Later on there's "pigs, whales and naked mole rats". Of the mammal species listed, only is an unfamiliar animal, and rarely considered cute.
Too bad more non-cute mammals weren't on the list. How many people think of the promiscuous monkey, or the Philippine tarsier - both primates - as being 'close to home'? What of bats, and the brown rat?
I think most people would identify with many avians before identifying with a bat.
I looked at a list of "ugliest mammals". The #1 of some of the lists was Sam the Chinese Crested dog. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_%28ugly_dog%29 .
Freds have organized for at least 15 years, with yearly marches in Miami, and slogans like 'Fred Is Not a Four-Letter Word,' and 'Better Fred Than Dead.' - http://www.miaminewtimes.com/calendar/king-mango-madness-635...
The Stephen/Steven/Stephanie/Esteban/s etc. organized to support evolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Steve
I'm sure if you look hard enough, you can find a group of like-minded people who identify as John.
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artmay98/fiveking.html
It's fantastic.
Years ago, I got a copy, and read it from cover to cover. After however many pages of bacteria and protoctista, dozens of phyla of weird, unimaginable, almost alien single-celled organisms, I eventually got to the animals. The first phylum is the placozoa, these little guys:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichoplax_adhaerens
And I felt a surge of emotion. Here, finally, was something like me! After visiting the extraordinary world of single-celled life, placozoa seemed like family.
This is not about fair treatment of animals or a "realistic" view of our place in the world. This is about abdicating responsibility. Refusing to admit that human beings are exceptional doesn't elevate the value of animals. It lowers our own. It means that, as mere mammals, we are not reasonably bound to any sort of behavioral code or sense of virtue (including ethical treatment of our kindred animal counterparts). Like it or not, we have the unique ability to make or break this planet and the only way to save it is to hold ourselves to a higher standard, not a lower one.
I've heard similar arguments before. In fact, we have a long history of people arguing for exceptionalism, only to find that those views are not worth believing.
We should not grant voting rights to women because rather than elevating their position it will lower the exceptional position of men.
We should not grant freedom to black slaves because rather than elevate their position it will lower the exceptional position of white people.
Atheists and apostates reject the the behavioral code set by divine sources and think that humans are mere animals, not exceptional beings endowed by divine sources as good stewards of the Earth. They abdicate responsibility so must be punished.
We are at the center of the universe, and those who say the Earth revolves around the Sun are trying to destroy our exceptional place in the cosmos.
Your argument sounds equally as faulty as those sketches.