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The Pronoun Wars

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As America faces collapsing banks, closing hospitals, and radioactive waste contaminating elementary schools, most Republicans are laser focused on their war on woke and pugilism against pronouns. This is eminently rational on their part since addressing these other problems would risk the ire of their financial backers, rejection by their base, and put them at odds with their professed ideology. But let us look at the pronoun wars.

While the pronoun war is largely a conflict manufactured by the right using the straw man and nut picking tactics, there is a tiny bit of truth buried deep under all the hyperbole. There are some cases in which people do appear to be acting in extreme ways about pronoun usage and these can be weaponized to “argue” that the left is looney about pronouns. But, of course, this is fallacious reasoning.

I do also get that people can seem to be engaged in pompous virtue signaling about pronouns and that other people can find this annoying. This is analogous to the stereotype of vegans annoyingly telling everyone they are vegans—even if people are fine with veganism, the posturing is annoying. There are also stereotypes of religious goody two shoes telling everyone that they are goody two shoes. Again, it is the posturing that is annoying. But tolerating annoying behavior by having a proportional response is part of being a mature, decent person. People do like to signal that they are virtuous, and people do have a right to express their values, even if other people are mildly annoyed by this. As such, the right thing to do is politely tolerate such mild virtue signaling. But what about cases in which a person is serious (and not just virtue signaling) about their pronouns? My view of this is shaped by the “Mikey Likes It” commercial for Life cereal.

While my name is “Michael” I usually go by “Mike.” I do know some Michaels who go by “Mickey”, but I do not. As far as I can recall, no one has tried to call me “Mickey.” But, as you have probably guessed, people have called me “Mikey.” I do not like that.

The reason why I don’t like being called “Mikey” is that when people use “Mikey” they have almost always been trying to insult or provoke me. I have usually responded by politely saying that I do not go by “Mikey”. If they keep pushing it, it just becomes ever more evident they are doing it to insult or provoke me. People have, of course, claimed that they do not understand why I am taking offense at being called “Mikey” and some have even said that they can call me whatever they want. It has, of course, been a while since this has happened but the pronoun wars reminded me of how much I hated being called “Mikey” by people trying to mess with me in my youth.

Looked at philosophically, my view is that my name is my name and I have the right to decide what name I will respond to. It is not up to other people to decide. This is especially true when they are misnaming me with malicious intent: they are engaged in attempting to insult or provoke me. Obviously, I don’t think this is a serious offense against me—it is on par with other insults or verbal provocations. But it is still a hostile action, motivated by malice or cruelty.

When I hear of people insisting that they be called by their chosen pronouns, I get it—I think of people trying to insult or provoke me by calling me “Mikey.” Their pronouns belong to them and thus they have the right to refuse to respond to pronouns they do not accept. People attempting to impose pronouns on them are most likely trying to insult them, be cruel, or provoke them—and hence are to be condemned in their misdeeds. But wait, someone might say, isn’t forcing people to accept your pronouns forcing them to accept your values?

When made in good faith, there is an interesting issue here of whether accepting a person’s pronouns entails accepting a specific value system about identity.

On the one hand, it can be argued that it is like me expecting people to call me “Mike” rather than “Mikey.” I am not forcing people who believe that “Mikey” is the right short version of “Michael” to adopt my world view about my name; I just expect them to respect my name when they talk to me. If this is too much for them, they can just call me “Michael.” Likewise, if a person has “they” as their pronoun, no one is forced to accept whatever world view might lie behind that choice—the other person can either use “they” or avoid pronouns if they have a sincere commitment against using pronouns in ways, they do not want to use them.

On the other hand, one could argue that using a person’s preferred pronouns is to endorse or at least tolerate the values that are purported to lie behind their choice. For example, a person might use “she/her” and someone talking to them might have a conceptual scheme in which that person is a “he/him.” As such, if they use “she/her”, then they would be respecting the other person’s pronoun choice at the expense of their own professed belief. Likewise, if a person had a sincere belief that “Mikey” is the correct short form of “Michael” then they would be respecting my choice at the expense of their own professed belief.

As another example, imagine that Sally is divorced and changed her name from Mrs. Sally Jones back to Ms. Sally Smith. Now, suppose that Sally is talking to Ted at the DMV and Ted has sincere believes about marriage such that he does not recognize divorce, that he believes that a married woman must go by Mrs., and that a woman must take and keep her husband’s name. Sally is trying to get a new driver’s license as Ms. Sally Smith. Because of Ted’s beliefs about marriage, as a person he refuses to refer to her as “Ms. Sally Smith” and, as a DMV worker, refuses to issue her a new driver’s license. His belief is profound and sincere, but it would be absurd to say that he thus has the right to refuse to accept her choice just because he has a different conception of marriage than her (and almost everyone else). Likewise, one could say it would be absurd for someone to just impose pronouns on people based on their conception of proper pronoun use—even if this is based on sincere beliefs. After all, it is not Ted’s beliefs that should decide how Sally refers to herself.

A person could, of course, be both respectful of the other person and act in accord with their beliefs by simply not using pronouns. After all, if the person asked to use pronouns they do not want to use sees it as an imposition on them, then they would also have to accept that applying pronouns that people do not accept would also be an imposition on them. If someone insists on imposing pronouns on others, then it might be suspected that they are motivated by malice or cruelty.  Obviously, misusing pronouns for the sake of being cruel or from malice would be wrong, even if the person professed that they had sincere beliefs about correct pronoun usage.

In closing, I obviously don’t think that people should be able to use the right to choose their pronouns and name to engage in identity theft, etc. I also do not think that people would identify themselves as attack helicopters or whatever—I say this to show that I am familiar with the rhetoric used in the “debate.” It does no more harm to use the pronouns that people wish to use than it does to use the name they prefer. If it is asking too much to do this, then the easy fix is to simply not use pronouns.

Progressives Put Boebert & Greene in Congress

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Votes for Women
Progressives

The title of this essay could be interpreted as claiming that Boebert and Greene’s culture war against “the progressives” and “the woke” is what got them into congress. While this is likely, what I mean is that progressives fought for the rights of women to vote and hold office and without them, Boerbert and Greene would be unable to do either.

 

The right tends to be ahistorical or mythological in their approach to the past, so it is not surprising that they rarely talk about how conservatives now accept progressive and even radical views that past conservatives fought. An excellent illustration is women’s rights. Women were granted the right to vote by the 19th Amendment which was ratified on August 18, 1920. While this might seem like a long time ago, there are people still alive that were born before then. Interestingly, the first woman served in congress in 1917.

As would be expected, the battle over women’s right to vote and hold office mostly followed the usual template of conservative arguments for exclusion. One anti-suffrage argument was that women did not want the vote because they took care of the home and children and hence did not have the time to vote or stay informed about politics. Interestingly, this argument was advanced by the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage which was founded in 1911 by Josephine Dodge. Dodge had also led a movement to establish daycare centers for working mothers and was apparently not deterred from political involvement by her own reasoning.

The other argument, which is a stock argument for exclusion, is that women are defective in some manner relative to men: they lack the mental capacity to engage in politics or are too emotional. A “nicer” version of the argument is based on the belief that men and women are fundamentally different and that women would be sullied by getting involved in politics. There were also racist and class arguments against extending the vote: allowing all women the right to vote would allow, well, all women the right to vote even minorities and those in the lower classes.

There was also the “practical” argument that allowing women to vote would increase the cost of elections by doubling the number of voters. Some often unspoken “practical” arguments were concerns that women would act from maternal concern and vote for prohibiting alcohol consumption (which did happen with Prohibition) and vote for safer working conditions and limits on working hours.

While progressives and radicals (including some anarchists) were the people backing women’s suffrage, one argument in favor of it rests on the stereotype of women as maternal and purer than men: the argument was that women voters would clean up politics and government (which was, as noted above, some people worried about). There were also more liberal arguments based on natural rights (citizens have a moral right to have a say in the government) and, of course, the classic “no taxation without representation” argument. Despite the stereotype argument, the movement for women’s suffrage would best be cast as a leftist, progressive, and even radical movement opposed to traditional family values. It is true that the Republican party at the time did support women’s suffrage, but the Republican party of the past is fundamentally different from the Republican party of today (and likewise for the Democrats).  So, what does this mean for today?

Given that women’s right to vote and right to hold office are progressive and even radical views, the fact that the American right (mostly) accepts women like Boebert, Greene, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Nikki Haley in positions of power suggests three possibilities.

The first is that the right is more progressive than it believes and is willing to quietly embrace some progressive values, such as allowing women to vote and hold office. This seems unlikely.

The second is the “Queen Victoria” approach: while these women think they should be in office, this is not a commitment to the general principle that women should have the right to hold office. While possible, there is not much evidence either way—although Boebert recently claimed that women are weaker vessels and because of their frailty need men.

The third  is that while these were once progressive and radical ideas, they are now old enough and established enough to no longer be considered progressive or radical. If so, this indicates that traditional and conservative values can shift over time, albeit at a slower progression than the progressives. On this view, the distinction between progressives and conservatives would also include the factor of time: conservatives eventually embrace some progressive views but it just takes them longer. This seems plausible and if anyone were to suggest to Boebert and her fellows that they are embracing progressive views by holding office, they would presumably deny it and then probably tear into the “woke” and “progressives for wanting to do for others what the progressives once did for women.  This gradual increase in inclusion relative to who gets excluded by the right suggests that in 100 years there might be a trans conservative in office raging (and voting) against rights for synthetic people. This is not intended to be against trans people; the point is that members of any excluded group are people and a person can be an exclusionary bigot even if they are a member of a group that is or was excluded and subject to bigotry. The American right demonstrates this every day. For example, not long ago Italian Americans were not considered white and were subject to discrimination and racism. But now Ron DeSantis, whose family immigrated fairly recently, is infamous for his anti-migrant policies and even his cruelty to migrants.

While I do not expect such people to experience a revelation about the inconsistency of their views and their fundamental immortality, this does nicely undercut the right’s professed world view. Far from holding fast to traditional values, the American right (slowly) shifts and progresses in terms of who is excluded and who is the target of bigotry. True, they do hold to the traditional values of exclusion and prejudice, but the tent really does get bigger. The right has already accepted, with some limitations, women, minorities, and homosexuals—groups they once violently excluded.

This does lead to an interesting question about what will happen if the tent keeps getting bigger. Will the right need to stop expanding the tent or will they eventually need to kick some people back out into the rain? Or could progress eventually put an end to exclusion when there is no one left to exclude? As I suggested above, this might be where technology can save the right for a while: once all humans are included, they can briefly exclude synthetic people. But eventually, there might be a right-wing AI member of congress raging against the people of Alpha Centauri and so on as long as they can find some outsider to exclude. So, the right had better get busy on backing AI and warp drive research.

Fairness & Transgender Athletes II: Category Changing

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In my previous essay I set the stage for discussing the concern about people switching competition categories to gain something. It is to this matter that that I now turn.

The Sickle Cell 5K in Tallahassee is well known for having a really good masters award for the overall male and female masters runners—it is better than the second and third overall awards. One year a masters runner was third overall but decided that he wanted the male masters’ award instead. This created a bit of a problem—while there was no rule about this, there were well established running norms in place: overall places take precedence over the masters category and the masters category takes precedence over age group placing.  So, a 40+ year old runner who placed first to third would get the corresponding overall award. The first 40+ runner outside the top three would get the masters award and the next runner in their age group would win that age group. As would be expected, some people were rather mad about this runner’s efforts to get the masters award—he was breaking the award category norms and traditions to get a better award.

His argument, which was not unreasonable, was that he was the first masters runner and hence earned that award. This meant that the 4th place runner would get third overall. This might sound odd, but (as noted above) the running norms already allow for a person who finishes second in their age group to place first if the person who would win that age group wins an overall or masters award (most races have a strict no-double-dip rule). While his request did break the norms, he was legitimately in the masters category. One might say that he elected to identify as a masters runner for the purpose of the award category. He did end up getting the award when the original masters winner did everyone a favor by giving up his award and allowed the awards to continue. But this episode is still talked about today—switching categories to get a better award is seen as questionable. This episode can be used as an analogy.

Suppose that transgender athletes are like the masters athlete—they really do belong in their chosen category but they are changing from one category to another in order to get a better award (or win). The masters runner could have accepted the third place award, a transgender runner who identifies as female could stick to competing as male. But by switching categories, the athletes gain and thus they have a clear incentive to do so. They also are both picking a category they really belong in—so they are not engaged in a cheat or deceit. But their motive is to switch for a gain and in doing so they do harm another athlete. The masters runner took the better award from another runner and a transgender athlete who changes categories to win takes away a win from another female athlete. This can be used to ground a moral argument against allowing athletes to change categories to win. That said, there is an easy counter.

Imagine a runner goes to a Division 1 school and finds that they are good enough for the division but not good enough to regularly win. They switch to a Division 2 school so they can win regularly. They have changed their category to improve their gains and have also “harmed” other runners by doing so—they might displace a runner from the team and will take victories that would have gone to other athletes had they not changed their category. While this approach to sports might not seem morally ideal, the runner would not seem to be acting wrongly—they would legitimately be Division 2 even if they could have stuck with Division 1. Likewise, for an athlete who switches their gender category legitimately: one might take issue with such maneuvers aimed at gain, but they seem to be morally acceptable. But, some readers probably refuse to accept the idea that an athlete can legitimately switch categories, so I now turn to this matter.

Let us go back to the masters award incident but change it a bit. Imagine that the third-place runner is 39 years and 10 months old but decides to identify as a masters runner in order to get the award. In this case, the issue is easily resolved: age is an objective matter, and they are not a masters runner. Hence, they do not get the award. Likewise, athletes who claim to be female but are not have no right to switch categories. While this might seem to settle the matter, there are at least two replies.

One reply is to go back to the masters case. Imagine that the runner is 39 years old based on his birthday, but he is a devote Catholic who sincerely believes that life begins at conception and sets his age accordingly. By his standard of age, he is a masters runner. While the official age of runner for racing is based on their birthdate and not their moment of conception, the runner could make an argument based on freedom of religion—he is being discriminated against by the failure of the race officials to recognize that he is at least 40. Likewise, a runner who self-identifies as a female could argue that she is being discriminated against when she is not allowed to select her category based on her beliefs about what it is to be female. Both runners could agree that there is a fact of the matter about being a masters runner or a female runner, but they disagree with the standards being imposed upon them by those who they see as discriminating against them. As such, the debate becomes one of defining category membership.

In the case of age, the dispute would seem to be easy to settle: to avoid charges of attacking religious freedom, the rules about age could be put neutrally to specify that the time from birth is used to determine the competition age of a runner. The standard applies to everyone and intuitively seems fair. In the case of gender, the same approach should be taken: a fair set of standards to categorize people is needed. Unfortunately, the matter of gender is far more complicated than that of age.

If gender were only of concern in sports, then the matter would be much easier to address. But gender impacts every aspect of a person’s life and is, of course, now a key battleground in the culture wars. As such, even if one makes a good faith effort to develop gender standards for sports categories, then one will be facing a daunting task. This is not to deny that many people think they have the right answer already and think they could easily solve the problem by imposing their own views on everyone else.

There are, of course, some easy and obvious sufficient conditions for being admitted into the female category: people with XX chromosomes and female anatomy and physiology get an automatic admission (if they wish).  Beyond that, the debates begin.  Since this matter is complicated and not my area of expertise, I freely admit that I do not have a set of necessary and sufficient conditions. I do not even have a well-considered set of general principles.

One specific principle I do have is that it would be morally wrong for a male athlete to lie about his identify to gain a competitive advantage. The moral problem is, of course, the intent to deceive to gain an advantage. I also, obviously, also see any use of deceit to do something wrong as wrong—so a male who lied about their identity so they could see naked girls would be acting wrongly. This is analogous to my view that it is wrong for person to lie about their religious views to gain something—such as a person who just wants to use a religious excuse to get away with discrimination or to avoid paying taxes. My moral assessment would, of course, adjust in cases of sincere belief—even if the person’s belief turns out to be untrue. As with the religion case, there is the practical problem of sorting out when people are lying—though in the United States we generally do not put professed religious beliefs to much of a test.

While there does not seem to be a large crisis in sports involving male athletes switching categories in large numbers, allowing people to switch categories merely by saying they identify in that category does provide an opportunity for the unprincipled to exploit—just as allowing people to claim special treatment simply for asserting they have religious beliefs allows opportunities for the unprincipled. The moral and practical challenge is sorting out what test should be used to protect against such unprincipled exploitation while avoiding discriminating against people. We do not make people prove that their religious beliefs are true before allowing them to gain the benefits of professing belief and we need to be consistent when it comes to professed gender identity. One approach, which is what we generally do for religion, is take people at their word unless there is adequate evidence of an intent to deceive. For example, a male athlete who posted “LOL identifying as a girl just to win the 5K today, but fellas stay away I ain’t gay! After I win, I will be a boy again.” would seem to be intending to deceive and should, one would infer, not be allowed to compete in the 5K as a female.  Likewise, if someone bringing a freedom of religion lawsuit so they can discriminate posted “LOL pretending to believe in God so I can hate on the gays!”, then they should probably not win that lawsuit. But in other cases, we should accept their profession as sincere. I do admit this does not settle the matter.

 

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Fairness & Transgender Athletes I: Marking the Course

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Upon taking office, Joe Biden signed an executive order requiring that schools receiving federal funding allow people who self-identify as females onto female sport’s teams. Pushback against it has ranged from thoughtful considerations of fairness to misogyny masquerading as morality.

In addition to being complicated in its own right, the fairness of self-identified females being allowed to compete as females is also linked to other complicated matters, such as broader concerns of fairness in society and issues of gender identity. People arguing in good faith can make arguments in one area without realizing the implications of these arguments in other areas. To illustrate, consider the fictional character of Polly. Polly is a national level high school runner who holds to a principle of fairness. Polly’s brother, Paul, is faster than Polly but not a national level male runner. He jokingly suggests putting on a dress and beating Polly, which worries her—if a person can self-identify as a female, Paul could do that and suddenly be a national level female high school runner. In a panic, Polly thinks of her nightmare scenario: the top male runners compete as boys, switch identities, and win again as girls! Polly and her sister runners would be out of the competition, which would be unfair. In good faith, Polly can make a very good argument moral argument against allowing this based on fairness—but her seemingly reasonable argument might justifying harming people in the broader context of fairness in society—something Polly would not want. As such, we should be careful to consider the implications arguments about fairness in sports have in other areas.

People can also in bad faith, presenting an appealing fairness argument in the context of sports while not caring about fairness at all. Their intent might be to use the sports issue argument as a Trojan horse to lure people into their ideological agenda or they might want to weaponize the seemingly reasonable argument in the broader context after getting people to accept it in the sports context. This is not to say that arguing in bad faith entails that a person must be making false claims or fallacious arguments—a person can use truth and good logic in bad faith efforts. But we should be on guard against bad faith arguments. I will endeavor to follow my own advice and make good faith arguments while considering their possible implications.

From the standpoint of fairness, there are reasonable moral grounds to be concerned about allowing people to self-identify their competition category. To focus the discussion, I will use my own sport of running and the specific context of road races—but the general points apply across all sports.

Road races have well-established competition categories aimed primarily at fairness. Almost all races have gender categories (male or female). Most races also have age groups and some also include the master category (40+) and sometimes he grand master category (50+). A few races also add a weight category (Clydesdale or Athena). In addition to categories created primarily for fairness, races sometimes have other categories for other reasons. For example, the Bowlegs 5K in Tallahassee raises money for a college scholarship and has a special educator category. Since educators as a class have neither advantages nor disadvantages relative to other runners, this category is not based on fairness.

In most cases, these categories serve their intended purpose—they make competition fairer by sorting people into groups based on qualities that impact performance. In some cases, these categories can have the unintended effect of allowing a person in a generally advantaged category win in their category while losing to a runner in a disadvantaged category. For example, a 50-year-old runner might win nothing in his age group while also beating every runner in the younger age groups—he thus loses to inferior performances because of the age groups intended to allow older runners like him to fairly compete. So, he gets no prize while those he beat do. While this can be annoying, these cases tend to be rare and the overall positive impact of age groups and gender divisions outweigh the negative aspects. This is a good general approach to take to setting policies—a good policy will never be perfect, but a good policy generally creates more good than bad. But there are people who do try to exploit categories to their advantage. I will turn to this in my next essay.

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Mighty Victims 4: Anecdotal Evidence

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Power holders in the United States tend to be white, male, straight, and (profess to be) Christian. Membership in these groups also seems to confer a degree of advantage relative to people outside of these groups. Yet, as been noted in the previous essays, some claim that the people in these groups are the “real victims” today. In this essay I will look at how a version of the fallacy of anecdotal evidence can be used to “argue” about who is “the real victim.”

The fallacy of anecdotal evidence is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on an anecdote (a story) about one or a small number of cases. The fallacy is also committed when someone rejects reasonable statistical data supporting a claim in favor of a single example or small number of examples that go against the claim. The fallacy is considered by some to be a variation of the hasty generalization fallacy (drawing a conclusion from a sample that is too small to adequately support that conclusion). The main difference between hasty generalization and anecdotal evidence is that the fallacy anecdotal evidence involves using a story (anecdote) as the sample.

Here is the form of the anecdotal evidence variation often used to “argue” that an advantaged group is not advantaged:

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that Group A is advantaged relative to Group B

Premise 2: A member of Group A was disadvantaged relative to a member of Group B.

Conclusion: Group A is not advantaged relative to Group B (or Group B is not disadvantaged relative to Group A).

To illustrate:

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that white Americas are advantaged relative to black Americans.

Premise 2: Chad, a white American, was unable to get into his first choice of colleges because affirmative action allowed Anthony, a black American, to displace him.

Conclusion: White Americans are not advantaged relative to black Americans.

 

The problem with the logic is that an anecdote does not suffice to establish a general claim—an adequate sample would be needed to make a strong generalization.

But one must also be on guard against another sort of fallacy:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that Group A is advantaged relative to Group B.

Premise 2: Member M of Group A is disadvantaged relative to Member N of Group B.

Conclusion: The disadvantage of M is morally acceptable, or M is not really disadvantaged.

 

To illustrate:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that men are advantaged relative to women.

Premise 2: Andy was disadvantaged relative to his boss Sally when she used her position to sexually harass him.

Conclusion: The disadvantage of Andy is morally acceptable, or Andy was not really disadvantaged.

 

 

While individual cases do not disprove a body of statistical evidence they should not be dismissed. As in the illustration given above, while men generally have the workplace advantage over women, this does not entail that individual men are never at a disadvantage relative to individual women. It also does not entail that, for example, men cannot be the victims of sexual harassment by women.  As another illustration, while white men dominate academics, business, and politics, this does not entail that there are not injustices against specific white men in such things as admission, hiring and promotions. These sorts of situations can lead to considerable moral debates about harm.

One excellent example is the debate over affirmative action. The oversimplified justification is that groups that have been historically disadvantaged are given a degree of preference in the selection process. For example, a minority woman might be given preference over a white woman in the case of college admission. The usual moral counter is that the white woman is wronged by this: if she is better qualified, then she should be admitted—even if this entails that the college population will remain almost entirely white. The usual counter is that the white woman is most likely better qualified because she has enjoyed the advantages conferred from being white. For example, her ancestors might have built wealth by owning the ancestors of the black woman who was admitted over her and this inherited wealth meant that her family has been attending college for generations, she was able to attend excellent schools and her family could pay for tutoring and test preparation. This can be countered by other arguments, such as how the woman did not own slaves herself, so it is unfair for her to not be admitted on the “merit” arising from her advantages. One can, of course, consider scenarios such as cases in which the black woman is from a wealthy family and the white woman is from a poor family. Such cases can, of course, be considered in terms of economic class—one could argue that this should also be a factor. This obviously all leads to the moral issue of whether it is acceptable to inflict some harms on specific members of advantaged groups to address systematic disadvantages, which goes way beyond the scope of this work. Fortunately, I do not need to settle this issue here. This is because even if such anecdotes are examples of morally wrong actions, they do not disprove the general statistical claims about relative advantage and disadvantage between groups. For example, even if a few white students are wronged by affirmative action when they cannot attend their first pick of schools, these anecdotes do not disprove the statistical evidence of the relative advantage conferred by being white in America. After all, the claim of advantage is not that each white person is always advantaged over everyone else on an individual by individual basis. Rather it is about the overall advantages that appear in statistics such as wealth and treatment by the police. As such, using anecdotes to “refute” statistical data is, as always, a fallacy. But what about cases in which members of an advantaged group do suffer a statistically meaningful disadvantage in one or more areas?

While falling victim to the fallacy of anecdotal evidence is bad logic, it is not an error to consider that members of an advantaged group might face a significant disadvantage (or harm) because of their membership in that advantaged group. As would be expected, any example used here will be controversial—I will use the Fathers’ Rights movement as the example. The central claim behind this movement is that fathers are systematically disadvantaged relative to mothers. While there are liberal and conservative versions, the general claim is that fathers and mothers should have parity in the legal system on this matter. Critics, as would be expected, claim that men tend to already enjoy a relative advantage here. But if the Fathers’ Rights movement is correct about fathers being systematically disadvantaged relative to mothers, then this would not be mere anecdotal reasoning. That is, it would not just be a few cases in which individual fathers were disadvantaged relative to a few individual mothers—it would be systematic injustice. But would this area of relative disadvantage disprove the claim of general advantage? Let us look at the reasoning:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that Group A is advantaged relative to Group B.

Premise 2: But Group A is disadvantaged relative to Group B in specific area C.

Conclusion: Group A is not advantaged relative to Group B.

 

As presented, this would be an error in reasoning—Group A being disadvantaged in one area would not prove that the group is not advantaged relative to Group B when all areas are considered. To use an analogy, the fact that Team B outscored Team A in the fifth inning of a baseball game does not entail that B is leading. It must be noted that a similar argument with multiple premises like Premise 2 could show that Group A is not advantaged relative to Group B—after all, establishing adequate statistical evidence would obviously be adequate. There are, of course, questions about how to determine relative advantage and these can be debated in good faith. One obvious point of dispute would be the matter of weighting. For example, if fathers are disadvantaged relative to mothers, how would this count relative to the pay gap between men and women? And so on for all areas of comparison. This does show the need to consider each area as well as a need for assessing value—but this is not unique to the situation at hand and one could, as is often done, assign crude dollar values to do the math.

In closing, while individual wrongs and wrongs done to members of advantaged groups as members of that group can occur, they do not automatically disprove the statistical data.

 

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Mighty Victims 3: Mighty, Yet Somehow Victims

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When it is claimed that the “real victims” are white, male, straight or Christian, there is the obvious problems of explaining how this occurs. It cannot be that white, male, straight and Christian people are systematically excluded from power in the United States—these are the people who currently hold the White House, the Senate and so on. But there is certainly a feeling among white, straight, male, and Christian people that they are suffering. This is a reasonable feeling because it is true. But what is the explanation?

A “left” explanation would be that while being white, male, straight or Christian yields relative advantages, the greatest advantages are held by those who possess the greatest wealth and power. That is, class is a dominant factor in the United States. Take, for example, the claim that migrants are stealing jobs. Put this way, white workers are victims of minorities. While there are cases in which jobs are lost to migrants, the job woes of Americans are not caused by migrants stealing jobs. While the causes of job losses and underemployment are complicated, a major factor is that those with the power to make decisions make decisions that result in these harms. As a specific example, my hometown relied on a paper mill as its primary employer. Migrants did not come to Old Town to steal the jobs, ownership of the mill changed and eventually those in charge decided to shut the mill down. My hometown suffered from this and suffers to this day. One could spend endless hours going through similar explanations of the real woes faced by white, male, straight, and Christian Americans. But this sort of explanation is obviously not going to be presented by those who hold power and those who support them. But they still need to provide an explanation for the suffering.

One “non-left” explanation is that the “real victims” are “losing” to the other groups because they are inferior. To use an analogy, back in the day my friends and I placed well in the local road races—we were the ruling class of running. This is no longer the case. The explanation is easy: we are now decades older and are inferior to the new young athletes who rule the racing world. One could argue that the same sort of thing is happening to the groups in question: they once ruled America but are now losing to superior groups because they are inferior. But this explanation would clearly be unacceptable to the conservatives who claim that these groups are the real victims.

One reason for this is the common conservative notion of merit and their claims about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. If the groups in question are “losing” because they are inferior, then this would be acceptable to a commonly professed aspect of conservative ideology. Conservatives do not typically say that white, straight, Christian men are losing because they are inferior, and this is morally fine.

A second reason conservatives will not accept the inferiority explanation is that it would not be good propaganda or rhetoric. Telling these groups that they are losing because they are inferior will hardly yield the desired results. As such, an explanation is still wanting.

Conservatives do tend to present the “opponents” of these groups as being strong. This allows the “defeat” to be blamed on the strength of the opposing groups rather than on the weak inferiority of the groups who are the “real victims.” An obvious problem is that if these opposing groups are presented as strong, this would entail that their “victims” are weaker and thus inferior. This creates quite a challenge: the “victim” groups must be victims, but they must also be mighty—they must be mighty victims. The reasons given that the groups are might can vary considerably and fall along a vast spectrum.

In the case of being white, the notion of whites being mighty can range from pride in being white to full white supremacy. Moderate examples of this would be people to argue for the superiority of Western (white) culture and point to the accomplishments of white people. Approaching the extreme end would be assertions of fundamental white supremacy and the inferiority of all others. Nazis would be in this area. I must, of course, state the obvious to pre-empt a likely attack: being fine with being white is fine. I’m fine with looking white; but I do not think I am thus superior to others.

In the case of being male, the notion that men are superior to women can range from pride in being a male to complete misogyny. Moderate examples would be those who argue that men and women have different qualities—but men are generally better at most things. Near the extreme end would be full misogyny—the idea that men are vastly superior to women and women are horrible, evil things out to destroy men. One can be fine with being a man; that can be healthy. I am fine with being a man; but I do not think this makes me superior.

In the case of being straight, the notion that being straight is superior to having another sexuality can range from the idea that being straight is  more natural to the notion that non-straight people are abominations that should be destroyed. Moderate examples would be those who say that being straight is generally better than not being straight and non-straight people probably have some minor mental illness. The extreme end would involve regarding those other than straight people as perverted abominations that should be cured, locked away or even killed. One can be fine with being straight—I am. But I do not think that other orientations must be perverted or inferior. I do, of course, recognize that there can be evil connected to one’s sexuality—pedophiles and rapists are morally wrong.

In the case of Christianity, the idea that it is better than other religions can range from the notion that it is somewhat better to the view that other faiths are not only inferior but wicked and horrible. Moderate examples would be people who think their faith is better because of Christ, but who think that other monotheistic faiths are close to being right (if only they would accept Jesus). Extreme examples would include a fanatical loathing and hatred of other faiths, regarding those people as not only wrong but monstrous in their beliefs. This is not to deny that some people are monstrous in their beliefs. Christians should obviously be fine with being Christian—I am fine with my Episcopalian background. But I do not think I am thus superior to others. Once it has been “argued” that these groups are superior, then an explanation must be given as to why they are the “real victims.”

As noted above, the opposing groups that make whites, men, straight people, and Christians into the “real victims” must be strong enough to “win” yet also inferior. These requires that the opposing groups have the traits needed to “win” while also having the traits that make them inferior. The “real victim” groups must have the traits needed to “lose” while also having the traits that make them superior. This seems to create the paradox of the mighty victims: the inferior victimizers must win consistently to explain why these superior groups are the “real victims” but the “victory” must also be somehow unearned.

One way to try to do this is by a sports analogy in which the best athletes are consistently bested by inferior athletes. The inferior athletes could win by cheating or through some conspiracy, thus the inferiors consistently and unfairly best their betters. This would, of course, require that the best athletes can never overcome the cheating or do anything to prevent it—that is, they are powerless to be anything but mighty victims. But this would seem to require that although they are the best athletes, they are lacking in other ways that allow them to be so easily bested. For this analogy to work with the groups in question, it would need to be shown that these groups are cheating in some manner that cannot be addressed by the alleged superiority of the “real victims.” It is not clear how this would work: that the “real victims” would be superior yet still unable to overcome the cheating of the alleged inferiors.

A second way is to use the ally hypothesis—the victimizing groups are aided and abetted by traitors in the victimized groups. On this narrative, the traitors are able to best their betrayed fellows because they are also among the superior and they are aiding the other groups to best their own kind. For example, one might allege that there are white race traitors helping other groups to victimize whites. This would, of course, require that the traitors be superior to those who are loyal—otherwise the group loyalists should be able to “win.” So if whites being the real victims is explained in terms of white traitors, the problem is that this would seem to entail that the “best” whites are the traitors since they are “beating” their inferior fellow whites. So, the ally hypothesis does not work well.

A third way is to use the number hypothesis; the inferior victimizing groups have superior numbers, so the superior victims are “losing.” While it is true that numbers can offset ability, the “real victim” groups are generally not outnumbered. Men and women are roughly equal in numbers, straight people seem to vastly outnumber other orientations, Christians dominate American religion, and white people still have a numerical advantage in America—though they might be a majority minority (that is, not 50+% of the population but still more than any other group). As such, the numbers argument fails. But there is an explanation that does reconcile the fact that these groups are both “superior” and victims.

It is true that white people, men, straight people, and Christians are victims. But it is also true that people from these groups hold the overwhelming power in the United States. Thus, these groups both hold superior power and contain victims. The victims are, ironically, most often victims of their fellows who hold superior power. So how do the powerful few convince the many in these groups that they are the “real victims” of the out groups?

A main strategy seems to involve pointing to losses in relative advantages between groups and convincing people that these losses are both unfair and caused by the other group. For example, men have lost some of their relative advantages over women in both the law and social norms and one might say that nothing stings like losing an undeserved advantage. It is natural to blame women for this.  As another example, whites have lost many relative advantages over the years—to use an extreme example, people who are not white can no longer be owned as property. It is natural to blame people who are not white for this. Straight people have also seen same-sex marriage legalized, which clearly some people see as a loss. It is natural to blame the people with other orientations for this.  Christianity has had to share more space with other religions and this loss of advantage no doubt strikes some as being victimized. It is natural to blame people of other faiths for this.

Another strategy involves getting people in these groups to believe (or at least feel) that most of their woes are the fault of the other groups—even when there is no connection between the two. For example, the poverty and underemployment that white, straight, Christian men face is blamed on minorities—although the economic decisions in the United States are mostly made by a few white, straight, Christian men. White, straight, Christian men who are concerned that men die disproportionately in dangerous jobs might blame the feminists—but it is obviously not the feminist who exclude women from dangerous jobs and it is certainly not the feminists who control working conditions or when we take military action. There are also cases in which the harms are entirely fictional—for example Fox’s eternal make-believe war on Christmas.

We thus have a working explanation of mighty victims. A tiny fraction of the members of the group are mighty in that they hold overwhelming power. The other members of these groups are victims—but they are mostly victimized by members of their own groups. Which makes sense: the idea that those with less power are somehow victimizing the powerful is as absurd as the idea that the poor are victimizing the rich.

 

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