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Creeped Out [pdf]

philpapers.org

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Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#31

Post by kragen »

jijijijij wrote: post #28
pmarreck wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at some point, I noticed that “creepy“ was almost exclusively used to describe males

From the article: > It can also play a useful role in social coordination: when we evince being creeped out at another’s behavior, this can be a signal to those who notice that we dislike or disapprove of that kind of behavior. If it gets back to the person engaging in the behavior, it may regulate their actions as well. Few people enjoy being thought of as a creep. A sexual harasser, for example, might not mind bein…

hmm, i think generally criminals are considered scoundrels rather than creepy? obviously it depends on the crime and the culture

Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#33

Post by jijijijij »

kragen wrote: post #31
jijijijij wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > It can also play a useful role in social coordination: when we evince being creeped out at another’s behavior, this can be a signal to those who notice that we dislike or disapprove of that kind of behavior. If it gets back to the person engaging in the behavior, it may regulate their actions as well. Few people enjoy being thought of as a creep. A sexual harasser, for example, might not mind bein…

hmm, i think generally criminals are considered scoundrels rather than creepy? obviously it depends on the crime and the culture

Doesn't matter what you would call an instance of a criminal, tho. Creepiness happens prior to victimization. Men are more violent. Women are associated with violence less, consequently they are less likely perceived as a risk by default. A sense of danger is required for creepiness.

I think we both know, that's how it is, if we're being honest. no?!

Would you rather hitchhike with a man, or a woman? Would you rather pick up a group of female or male hitchhikers?

Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#34

Post by munificent »

kazinator wrote: post #11
munificent wrote: post #2

This paper is almost a parody of philosophical writing. It's pages and pages of telling you what it's not going to tell you, contrasting it with other things it could tell but chooses not to, mentioning other things others have told you (which will not be repeated here), disagreeing with the claims of other writers (without quite explaining the refutations), telling you what it intends to tell you, telling you in wha…

> then reminding that it told you. You dropped the excellent play there: should be "reminding you of what it was not going to tell you, and didn't."

Oh, that is very good.

Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#35

Post by kragen »

jijijijij wrote: post #33
kragen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hmm, i think generally criminals are considered scoundrels rather than creepy? obviously it depends on the crime and the culture

Doesn't matter what you would call an instance of a criminal, tho. Creepiness happens prior to victimization. Men are more violent. Women are associated with violence less, consequently they are less likely perceived as a risk by default. A sense of danger is required for creepiness. I think we both know, that's how it is, if we're being honest. no?! Would you rather hitchhike with a man, or a woman? Would you rather…

i would rather hitchhike with a man or pick up a male hitchhiker, but i agree that a group of male hitchhikers would seem more dangerous to me

not creepy, though; danger is clearly not necessary for creepiness. earthworms, socially awkward people, garter snakes, cockroaches, etc., are all considered creepy by most people despite the total lack of danger

nor is danger sufficient for creepiness. the people who i've most seen victimize others have zero creepiness; in fact, they push the creepometer into negative numbers. they're anti-creepy. creepy people suck at victimizing others because they attract attention and because their possible victims are suspicious of them. so i strongly disagree with your assertion that 'creepiness happens prior to victimization'. derek chauvin was not creepy. donald trump was not creepy. elizabeth holmes was not creepy. the guys who mugged me on the train were not creepy

if we want to limit the topic specifically to sexual assault, my own personal experience is that i've only ever been sexually assaulted by one or two people, both women; but most of the other people i know who have been sexually assaulted (that i know of) have only ever been sexually assaulted by men

however, your rhetorical question, 'i think we both know, that's how it is, if we're being honest. no?!' is super creepy. your implication that anyone who disagrees with you is simply being dishonest about their true beliefs, and their true desires are the same as your desires even though they're saying the opposite, that makes me want to reach for my pepper spray or find a bouncer. i'm glad you don't know where i live

Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#36

Post by jijijijij »

kragen wrote: post #35
jijijijij wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter what you would call an instance of a criminal, tho. Creepiness happens prior to victimization. Men are more violent. Women are associated with violence less, consequently they are less likely perceived as a risk by default. A sense of danger is required for creepiness. I think we both know, that's how it is, if we're being honest. no?! Would you rather hitchhike with a man, or a woman? Would you rather…

i would rather hitchhike with a man or pick up a male hitchhiker, but i agree that a group of male hitchhikers would seem more dangerous to me not creepy, though; danger is clearly not necessary for creepiness. earthworms, socially awkward people, garter snakes, cockroaches, etc., are all considered creepy by most people despite the total lack of danger nor is danger sufficient for creepiness. the people who i've mos…

> danger is clearly not necessary for creepiness

Have you even read the article of this post?

You are derailing the conversation and are moving the goal post of the argument

Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#37

Post by feminit »

jijijijij wrote: post #27
kazinator wrote: post #10

> Being creeped out is a feeling or reaction that is valuable for some other reasons as well. A shared sense of what is creepy can make for social bonding, either in the face of a joint threat or annoyance, or just to feel fellow feelings in shared reactions. Being creeped out as a bonding circle jerk is all fun and games, until what the group is creeped out by are people from some ethnic group.

I think, you picked a single sentence out of context, kind of dismissing the point of the article. > The fact that being creeped out is a relatively visceral reaction that appears to require little cultural scaffolding suggests that it is a response with origins, at least in part, deep in our evolutionary history: and we might predict that there would be a suite of relatively old emotional responses with the function…

> For example, the archetype of the 'creepy pervert man' is projected onto the "bathroom confrontation with a trans woman" scenario. That only works as abstract fiction in media, as actual confrontations would not induce the feeling of being creeped out

Actually they do induce that feeling, but because it's women saying so, we just get ignored and belittled and told to "be kind".

Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#38

Post by pmarreck »

jijijijij wrote: post #28
pmarreck wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at some point, I noticed that “creepy“ was almost exclusively used to describe males

From the article: > It can also play a useful role in social coordination: when we evince being creeped out at another’s behavior, this can be a signal to those who notice that we dislike or disapprove of that kind of behavior. If it gets back to the person engaging in the behavior, it may regulate their actions as well. Few people enjoy being thought of as a creep. A sexual harasser, for example, might not mind bein…

> It can also play a useful role in social coordination: when we evince being creeped out at another’s behavior, this can be a signal to those who notice that we dislike or disapprove of that kind of behavior. If it gets back to the person engaging in the behavior, it may regulate their actions as well.

The problem is that this is not a rational argument against someone's behavior, it's just an appeal to popularity. Disapproval based on nothing empirical is just a taste-based argument, which is fallacious. Basically, the Overton window as applied to socially-acceptable behavior. 50 years ago, anything remotely homosexual was met with extreme social disapproval; it was just as bad an argument against it then as it is now- the only difference is that social approval progressed, and arguably became more rational.

> sex differences in crime

This is a sexist argument. By definition. You could make a racist one just as easily.

So basically, you start off with a nonsensical/irrational argument, and end with a sexist one. Congrats?

Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#39

Post by [deleted] »

geraldhh wrote: post #22
cubefox wrote: post #16

A concept that's specific to the English language is probably a rather idiosyncratic disjunction of properties and not worth writing philosophy papers about. E.g. German has no proper translation for "creepy", we would use different words for various cases described by it. It's like thinking there is some global concept "can" that includes both "being able to" and "being allowed to", just because in the English langu…

nope, "can" states ability, "may" permission

[deleted]

Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#40

Post by deaddodo »

cubefox wrote: post #16

A concept that's specific to the English language is probably a rather idiosyncratic disjunction of properties and not worth writing philosophy papers about. E.g. German has no proper translation for "creepy", we would use different words for various cases described by it. It's like thinking there is some global concept "can" that includes both "being able to" and "being allowed to", just because in the English langu…

> A concept that's specific to the English language is probably a rather idiosyncratic disjunction of properties and not worth writing philosophy papers about.

Sure it does. To English speakers/linguists it could have a ton of reason to exist. In the same way a paper on wanderlust or schadenfreude would be useful to contextualize a realized phenomenon and how culture/language reflects that.

This specific paper has no reason to exist because it is simply bad, however.

> E.g. German has no proper translation for "creepy", we would use different words for various cases described by it.

Do you think creepy is the universal word for an unnerving feeling in English? There's "menacing", "sinister", "eerie", "ominous", "macabre", "ghoulish", "distasteful", "repugnant", "offensive", "cloying", "odious", etc, etc, etc. All with different subtleties to their implications.

The fact that German lacks a word for something has no effect on the lexicon of another language.

> It's like thinking there is some global concept "can" that includes both "being able to" and "being allowed to", just because in the English language "can" can express both. Chances are, it's just an ambiguous word.

The difference is cultural contextualization. English defers more to the agents in discussion to defer meaning. There are multiple words that all express a functionally equivalent meaning of "to be able": "can" (capability), "might" (desirability), "ought" (necessity), "may" (permissive), "able" (strictly neutral), etc; but each is used in a context that grants it more specified meaning.

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