long detailed comments neccessitate long multiple reply
Sorry for the length but long questions posed to me result in it.
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Originally Posted by
Jenny Brown
Ethical responsibilities?
Let me get this straight...
You're insinuating that if someone cd's, they have an "ethical responsibility" to NOT stop cd-ing even if they desire to stop? :eek:
That's deep, even for you Batty.
If we pass the buck someone else will have to suffer. We are the ones whose choices will determine the next generation of CDs number of suicides, murders and successful happy lives. We must consider the harm of attempting to quit and failing on our families and friends. We also have to look at what will be the lot of the next generation of CDs if we don't do our individual part to change that.
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It's not only deep, it's so far out in left field, I think very few people will agree with you.
That is because it directly challenges the assumption that CDing is the cause of the problem. I suggest that it is the recent transphobia that is the cause of the problem. Something only 200 odd years old in Australia, a smidge more in the USA and the same is true over much of the world. There are cultures still alive where this issue is not the case. That shows us the answer not just to our imediate problem but to generations of it.
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Look...if you want to crusade for Trans-Rights or whatever you want to call it, I say more power to you.
But, I can just about guarantee you that 95% (maybe more) of the members here won't be jumping on your Trans-Activist bandwagon anytime soon.
It's simply not going to happen.
That has no bearing on whether i'm right or not though. Try considering what would make my argument right or wrong. Often massive social changes come from a small number of people considering such statements.
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And the ones who aren't volunteering have no "ethical responsibility" to anyone.
How do you figure that? When driving a car we have an ethical responsibility to pedestrians, to other drivers right?
Just because people don't think about it doesn't mean its not there!
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Originally Posted by
Wen4cd
Actually I think there is no essential difference between telling people they should not quit dressing, and saying 'nobody should ever dress.' One generalizing opinion is as useless and bullyish as another.
Thats not what i said, i gave a why. If the why is wrong the further conclusion is, if not then not. Basic ethical and moral philosophy.
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Your suggestion is flawed, I feel, because it presupposes quite a lot of statements that aren't necessarily valid. It assumes:
a) that CDs have some undefined external 'goal' that must be achieved before any of us should be allowed to be happy with ourselves.
Nope. There exists a recent in most of the world transphobia causing CDs and their families to suffer. If that is reversed then CDs and their families will not suffer from that. Pretty simple really.
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b) that there is an undefined but universal 'situation' that needs to be changed.
Nope, it assumes there is a common one that needs to be changed and a 37%-40% attempted suicide rate accross the western world wherever TG figures are obtained shows that is so.
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c) that some individual quitting dressing is going to somehow hinder this change from this undefined situation to this undefined goal.
It's a matter of passively adding to inertia versus active eroding of a killing-people problem. A relatively binary situation with degrees.
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d) that quitting cross-dressing is never in the best interests of any individual's mental health.
All evidence thus far suggests the only harm to mental health comes from existing in a transphobic society does it not?
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e) that even if quitting cross-dressing was in the best interests of someone's mental health, that particular individual should still sacrifice his health in the name of your agenda to move from the the undefined situation to the undefined goal, whether or not it's also his goal, or was ever his goal.
It's not 'my' agenda. The current situation is defined by international statistics a regular pattern of human rights abuses, wrecked families and struggle. This very thread is evidence of the problem. Why would all CDs alive now not be responsible to fixing this real problem?
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f) that because you have one thing in common with this individual, he should adopt your agenda, alter his entire life around achieving your goal, and do harm to himself to satisfy your worldview.
Nope. Theres a reason post-modernism isn't used in moral and ethical reasoning.. cause it's bunkum. Either my arguments points are correct and lead to my conclusion or there is an error in them. It's not an argument of rhetoric but of reason you see?
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g) that the motivation for cross-dressing is always, universally, based in the physical body rather than the psyche, because it can never be in the best interest of someone's mental health to stop doing it.
The motivation is immaterial. Best interests in a transphobic society must be compared to it in a trans-accepting society and the fact that there will always be new CDs born.
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h) that if someone disagrees with any of these assumptions, they are immoral and are guilty of hurting others in the vague future.
Nope. Only if someone agreed with me and then acted contrary anyway would that be so clearly so.
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Not all of us accept these presuppositions. I'd be surprised if anyone accepts more than one or two.
But most of them are not crucial to my suggested argument. All thats needed for that is to show that there is not harm to others by attempting to quit or that there is less by attempting to quit. Your overcomplicating unneccessarily the whole notion raising largely immaterial counters that do not disprove the essential provisos and connections. Your not breaking the chain of reasoning that leads to my sggested conclusion.
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I could counter-suggest that the harm of asking real, actual people in the here and now, to potentially damage themselves in the name of validating your suggestion's worldview far outweighs any imagined harm to these ethereal 'future CD's,'
Cool point! So you suggest that for some reason exists that there will be no CDs in the future? Really? And that even if they exist just cause we have suffered through societal transphobia and internalised transphobia there is no reason to predict they too will if we are inactive? Really? Cause I really want to see your explanation for the probablity let alone possibility of those! ROFLMAO
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and that there is no reason whatsoever to believe it would help them in the first place,
Because of course there's no examples to follow.. oops, women, african americans, australian aboriginals, native americans, gays, every civil rights movement in human history....
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I'm also hearing a few things from the tone that suggest ideas that sound like: "two wrongs DO make a right" and "it's acceptable to impose your will on others if you think you know what's better for them more than they do."
Where?
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Are these the sort of ethics one learns from Peter "it's acceptable to have sex with animals but wrong to eat them" Singer? If so, I'll do without those ethics.
I did say i disagreed with him on several issues. But Utilitarianism is still a popular school of ethics. What school of Ethics do you prefer? Cause i'm pretty sure whether it's consequentialism to reciprocal ethics to stoicism the same conclusion is going to come from the same provisos.
