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The Provocations of Camille Paglia

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Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#141

Post by soudiere »

YorkshireSeason wrote: post #136
soudiere wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haraway has a PhD in Biology from Yale.

According to Wikipedia [1] her PhD was about "use of metaphor in shaping experiments in experimental biology". This is not what I'd call biology proper. You can have a look at it: it was later published as a book "Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields" which is available online [2]. I'm not sure how [2] makes her a "highly credentialed biologist" (in the same sense that "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" doesn't make Kuhn…

Yet somehow she got a PhD in biology from Yale with it, we should probably read it before judging it as "a biology paper" or "not a biology paper".

Feel free to list some highly credentialed social scientists you respect, and we can look up their PhD thesis titles.

Bottom line is she's highly credentialed with a PhD from Yale, taught at John Hopkins, and is now a "distinguished professor emerita" at UCSC.

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#142

Post by jolux »

homonculus1 wrote: post #123
jolux wrote: post #105

Paglia is one of those conservatives who is incredibly transphobic and hides it behind the facade of being a “provocateur.” She has defended the completely absurd belief (in this case, proposed by Sheila Jeffries) that cross-gender hormone therapy is a conspiracy by big pharma to get trans people taking hormones for life, among other things: “In it she [Jeffries] argues among other things, that the pharmaceutical ind…

Paglia is also trans...

Trans people can be transphobic! Especially against trans women and other transfeminine people, which is where most of the brunt of Paglia’s transphobia is.

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#143

Post by jolux »

faissaloo wrote: post #125
jolux wrote: post #105

Paglia is one of those conservatives who is incredibly transphobic and hides it behind the facade of being a “provocateur.” She has defended the completely absurd belief (in this case, proposed by Sheila Jeffries) that cross-gender hormone therapy is a conspiracy by big pharma to get trans people taking hormones for life, among other things: “In it she [Jeffries] argues among other things, that the pharmaceutical ind…

Oh I don't think she hides it, it's readily apparent. I don't really think there's anything wrong with it.

Sorry, you don’t think there’s anything wrong with being transphobic?

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#144

Post by dbuder »

merpnderp wrote: post #102
danharaj wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It supports believing people about what their gender identity is instead of imposing it on them. The rate of attempted suicide in transgender people is over 40% if they are not socially supported. That rate drops to general population levels in trans people who have familial and community support when transitioning.

Interesting stats, do you have a citation on the suicide rates?

It's about right and climbs post op.

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#145

Post by yesenadam »

chalst wrote: post #21
vixen99 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And anyone who wants to know a bit more about some of these theorists might want to read 'Intellectual Impostures' by the Left-leaning physicist Alan Sokal.

It is funny that of these three names, two were among the four explicitly exempted by Sokal and Bricmont of being impostors in a 1997 letter to Liberation following publication of the book: "Famous thinkers like Althusser, Barthes, Derrida, and Foucault are mainly absent from our book" Orig. https://next.liberation.fr/livres/1997/10/18/sokal-et-bricmo... . Cf. http://www.critical-theory.com/read-derridas-response-sok…

I don't think it's fair to say they were "explicitly exempted of being impostors" - Intellectual Impostures focuses exclusively on the use of scientific and mathematical terms by philosophers, as it's often clearly evident when an author doesn't know what they mean, and/or is using them in a totally absurd way. It's easier to catch them in the act of perpetrating nonsense. The four you mentioned just don't happen to use mathematical or scientific terms in the same egregiously nonsensical way. That is very far from the only way of writing bad philosophy. For some of the many others, see David Stove's What is wrong with our thoughts? (which, by the way, features Foucault)

http://www.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/wrongthoughts.html

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#146

Post by rtmaximo »

jolux wrote: post #118
devtul wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blockers have a negative effect on bone density and it is unknown if they affect brain development. I guess we will only really see the negative effects(if any) in a couple of decades. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/when-transgender-...

The bone density risk is the only one that has been shown reliably, and even then it’s not enough to warrant not using them. A review of the current literature shows the evidence on brain development impact to be spotty. And here’s the Endocrine Society, saying they’re safe and effective: https://www.endocrine.org/news-room/press-release-archives/2... . The doctors treating trans children keep up to date on this lite…

I have trouble understanding the need to transition as a close friend is just undergoing it. Though I support him/her, I cannot bend my mind around it? What are the perceived benefits? In what way is it that different from using different clothes without the (not sure if small or big) risk of health? Is it not enough to know oneself is X or Y or Z identity-wise? Why is there a need to externalize it and externalize it in this particular way? At risk of sounding condescending, one particularly hard thing for me to understand is the need for the rest of her friends to call her appropriately especially since she is just beginning. If someone called me a girl or a woman (common childhood insult where I grew up, and very bad in its own way) I simply could not care less.

What are the benefits of putting oneself over such a hard (at least it seems socially and medically) ordeal to change how others perceive one? One thing I know is that expecting others to perceive us in a certain way is a losing proposition. We can only change ourselves and it is unreasonable to expect it from everyone else I think.

Once again, sorry for being so extended, I just would like to understand better my friend. I have tried asking her and she seems to have a block around it, saying that I would not understand. At a certain level I feel this is only a superficial change I think but then if it's that small then why bother? (I mean my friend still has his same personality and mind)

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#147

Post by mbeex »

antisemiotic wrote: post #106
jazzyk wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nature has no morality But perhaps it does? Animals kill other animals only to survive (to kill them in order to eat them or to defend themselves from being killed/eaten) Humans may be the only species who hurt other humans just for the fun of it - now _that_ is cruelty.

Humans and cats, actually.

And others too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK_m_3ZQN8Q

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#148

Post by jboynyc »

soudiere wrote: post #140
jboynyc wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt there's much desire around here to argue the merits of gender studies in good faith. However, those proclaiming that gender scholarship doesn't get biology, I suggest you pick up Evelyn Fox Keller's excellent book Making Sense of Life (HUP, 2002) and allow yourselves to be surprised. (Yes, Keller is a physicist, not a biologist. Those trying to belittle or dismiss what women's studies has accomplished will pr…

I will give it a read. Fausto-Sterling seems to be loose with data. In The Five Sexes she cites Money as the source for upwards of 4% of the population being intersexual. Money denied the claim here (last page) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239657377_The_Five_... Later she revised to 1.7% in this paper with some fairly loose definitions of what constitutes "frequency of deviation from the idea female or ma…

Sure, but that's a weird publication of hers to take issue with. For context (from Wikipedia):

> In a paper entitled "The Five Sexes", in which, according to her, "I had intended to be provocative, but I had also written with tongue firmly in cheek." Fausto-Sterling laid out a thought experiment considering an alternative model of gender containing five sexes: male, female, merm, ferm, and herm. This thought experiment was interpreted by some as a serious proposal or even a theory; advocates for intersex people stated that this theory was wrong, confusing and unhelpful to the interests of intersex people. In a later paper ("The Five Sexes, Revisited"), she has acknowledged these objections.

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#149

Post by YorkshireSeason »

soudiere wrote: post #141
YorkshireSeason wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Wikipedia [1] her PhD was about "use of metaphor in shaping experiments in experimental biology". This is not what I'd call biology proper. You can have a look at it: it was later published as a book "Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields" which is available online [2]. I'm not sure how [2] makes her a "highly credentialed biologist" (in the same sense that "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" doesn't make Kuhn…

Yet somehow she got a PhD in biology from Yale with it, we should probably read it before judging it as "a biology paper" or "not a biology paper". Feel free to list some highly credentialed social scientists you respect, and we can look up their PhD thesis titles. Bottom line is she's highly credentialed with a PhD from Yale, taught at John Hopkins, and is now a "distinguished professor emerita" at UCSC.

   we should probably read it
I spent about 20 minutes reading parts of it. I'd classify it as "history of science" (a perfectly valid subject).

   Bottom line is she's highly
No. She is in no way "highly credentialised in biology". She has taught at universities but "Women's Studies and the History of Science", and "History of Consciousness [...] and Feminist Studies". (From [1])

The content of her Yale PhD is not in biology, in the way this term is usually understood (DNA, proteins, signalling chains, PCR, bench work, taxonomy of animals, ... i.e. studying the physical structure, chemical processes, molecular interactions, physiological mechanisms, development and evolution of living organisms).

Since the scientific credibility of subjects like "Feminist Studies" is controversial (unlike biology) claiming high credentials where there are none, makes me think of HN guidelines [7]: when discussing highly controversial subjects like, discussions about scientific credentials, should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less.

   list some highly credentialed 
   social scientists you respect,
I don't see why this is relevant for Haraway, not every great scientist has a great dissertation or written their dissertation in the field they later became famous for. The "bottom line" is that Haraway has no substantial credentials in biology, and certainly she has not done research in biology in the sense the term is usually understood. Anyway, to take up your challenge, I'm fairly familiar with the following highly credentialed social scientists: Karl Marx (PhD in philosophy on ancient Greek philosophy, I have been unable to locate it, if you have a link to the text, I'd be grateful), Max Weber (PhD in law about commercial law in Italy [2, 3]), Talcott Parsons (PhD is [4]), Émile Durkheim (PhD is on the division of labour [5]) and Niklas Luhmann (PhD about automation in administrations [6]). How is all this relevant regarding Donna Haraway?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Haraway

[2] http://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/research/weber1.html

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zur_Geschichte_der_Handelsgese...

[4] https://www.jstor.org/stable/1820700?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con...

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Division_of_Labour_in_Soci...

[6] https://www.amazon.de/Recht-Automation-%C3%B6ffentlichen-Ver...

[7] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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