A Panel Ad Hominem

Helen Pluckrose was an excellent addition to the panel at Portland State University on the subject of diversity of thought. But as she explains, she wasn’t asked to be on the panel at first. Or at second. Or because she was an excellent choice at all, really.

At first it was to be a frank discussion between Damore and Boghossian but the immediate criticism — mostly from students and on social media — was that diversity could not be discussed by two white men. It mattered not at all that one was the author of the memo at the center of the debate and the other a Socratic philosopher who focuses on epistemology and liberal ethics and is therefore well-qualified to probe both motivation and empirical justification.

The problem was that both of the people had penises, those penises were white and, as far as anyone knows, responsive to those of the opposite gender. They were hegemonic penises and this was problematic.

Not that all people with penises are men, but these two were.

Resolution of the hegemonic penis “problem” was first attempted via the invitation of not one but, ultimately, all five members of the tenured and tenure-track Women’s Studies faculty at PSU. They were believed to have different views to the biological argument put forth by James Damore and, importantly, they had vaginas. (At this point mathematician, author, and cultural commentator James Lindsay was also invited to participate in the event that the Women’s Studies faculty did decide to send three representatives.) They all declined to attend, one insisting it was inconceivable that the discussion could be had in good faith given the participation of Damore and Boghossian.

It’s unclear whether bad faith is imputed because of their hegemonic penii or their failure to be “good” men, but the attempt to “balance” the panel with the perspective of Women’s Studies profs, et al., was rebuffed.

Next, it was decided to ask other women with relevant knowledge to attend. These included Professor Heather Heying, whose area of expertise in evolutionary biology related directly to the biological claims within the memo, and me, a political writer and commentator who addresses the intersectional ideology making the biology of gender difference so taboo at present. (Lindsay was removed from the panel in the week leading up to the event for being a third white male.)

Both Heying and Pluckrose had two virtues to commend their invitation. First they were willing to do it, whereas the Women’s Studies profs were not.

I was delighted to be offered this opportunity, even if I couldn’t fully overlook that my inclusion was at least in part a demeaning and tokenistic “diversity” demand by the university.

The problem wasn’t that both Heying and Pluckrose brought knowledge to the panel that was worthy of sharing, but that identity politics demanded something that was missing from the original duet: people without a hegemonic penis. Yet, it wasn’t sufficient for some students to hear the words spoken by a woman.

The typical pattern of our conversations had been that I would ask them why they objected to it so strongly and be told that it claimed that women were less intelligent, less capable of doing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), less capable of generating ideas, generally biologically unsuited to working in tech, or that it perpetuated the idea that men and women are two distinct groups with different strengths and roles in life.

When I asked them to show me where it said any of these things or showed them where it said quite the opposite, where it stressed that the sexes were strongly overlapping populations with different distributions of traits (including a clear illustration of this) and where it emphasized the importance of treating people as individuals rather than as members of their group, they commonly fell back on some variation of, “Damore’s motivations were clearly sexist because otherwise he wouldn’t have written about this.”

Beyond vilifying Damore’s memo with words and ideas that appear nowhere, Damore’s motives were impugned because no one but a sexist, perhaps even a misogynist, would even think to write such a memo.

This isn’t just impossible to counter; it’s properly unfalsifiable. I knew that accusations that the memo was sexist could not stand up to honest scrutiny because I had read it, but I could not know whether James Damore himself was sexist. It is perfectly true that people have a variety of reasons for bringing up psychological, cognitive, and behavioral gender differences. These can be political whether socially conservative — women are better suited to childrearing and should stay in the home — or feminist — men commit more violence and should receive anti-toxic-masculinity training. It could also be that they’re simply stating facts about the universe, which happens to contain men and women as somewhat different members within a sexually dimorphic species (NB: that humans are sexually dimorphic allows for the possibility of intersex, and this is a well-understood variation that sometimes occurs).

Helen Pluckrose goes on to discuss the substance of the panel. There was an interruption when a protester pulled the plug on the sound system as Heather Heying spoke about biological differences between men and women, and the refusal to acknowledge the reality of their existence. But it was justifiable because of sexism.

While it is true that differing background perspectives may bring different information to the table, what remains unclear, even dubious, is the corollary idea that diverse background perspectives can bring different relevant information to bear on any given subject.

The panel was two males, two females, all of whom brought informed perspectives. They had the conversation. Still, it wasn’t good enough for some.

The diversity of identity that is prioritized by intersectional thought disbars any possibility of diversity of ideas about diversity — all ideas must conform to intersectional assumptions. This runs entirely contrary to the liberal tradition of a “marketplace of ideas,” in which all ideas can be evaluated by anyone with the aim that the best will survive and benefit humanity.

Thinking is hard. Believing is easy. Even a gender-balanced panel doesn’t change that, especially when it’s so sexist.

23 thoughts on “A Panel Ad Hominem

    1. SHG Post author

      It begs the question of penile sentience, though some men would concede that they’ve heard it speak to them at some point.

      1. Billy Bob

        Putting brackets around the comma is the hardest part of all. This is getting all too messy for us common folk who have to put food on the table and our bratty, lazy kidz–no-goodniks, each and every one–thru college. The College of Hark Knocks should teach those upstart renegade women on the Left Coast how relevant their fancy ideas about gender diversification, or lack thereof, are. Where’s Mattress Lady when we kneed her? (A blast from the past, documented right here at SJ. Ha.) And the young feminist up there at MiddleBerry College making all those fantastical claims and accusations against unsuspecting males. This is getting to be an epidemic, an episodic epidemic to boot.

        It’s all Trump’s fault, trust it. Pluckrose? Where do you get a name like that? A: plucked from the green fields of Oregon. Now we’re talking!

        1. SHG Post author

          No, it’s not. If you can’t manage to come up with comments that are either funnier or remotely thoughtful, you would do better offering your wisdom at reddit.

    1. Patrick Maupin

      I was trying to look that band up on google, but all I found were a bunch of dry “scholarly” articles.

  1. B. McLeod

    In the earlier post about this discussion and the SJW disruption, it appeared that the panel members without penii did not count because they were declared “brainwashed” by the SJWs. The irony was remarkable.

    1. SHG Post author

      Since I’m informed by people far more woke that I am just your run of the mill sexist for my refusal to comply, what other explanation could there be for women who lack the requisite wokyness their anatomy demands?

      Am I unduly concerned about all this, happening to kids and creeping its way into law? Am I being overwrought about this stuff?

      1. B. McLeod

        I hope so, but who knows. I do have a high degree of confidence that people hewing to this sort of behavior will never be able to maintain a functional society.

        1. LocoYokel

          The scary part about that is this. (Assuming SHG lets the link through. [Ed. Note: Never assume.])

          Scary that the eggheads are seriously considering the fact that most of the democracys around the world appear to be trending towards failing.

          1. LocoYokel

            Without the link the comment doesn’t make sense. Let’s see if he lets this through.

            Quick synopsis,

            There seems to be a growing trend in the world’s democracies towards rejecting democracy and embracing a form of populist, strongman government. (think Venezuela) Trump is an early example of the trend even though none of them are yet strong enough to topple the democratic governments completely. But the trend is slowly getting stronger over time. A lot of what we’re seeing now in various events is foreshadowing this.

            1. SHG Post author

              Aside from diving down an orthogonal rabbit hole, it’s a silly and shallow contention, unworthy of space here. There are always people yelling the sky is falling, but this doesn’t approach anything to be taken seriously.

      2. grberry

        First, thank you for this post – from it I found the full panel discussion on you-tube, which was a worthwhile investment of my time. I thought both Heying and Pluckrose made valuable contributions to the panel.

        As to your questions in this comment, I believe you are not unduly concerned about this creeping its way into law, via either the mechanism of politicians bowing to the wishes of the poorly-educated kids or via misinterpretations of existing law by those poorly-educated kids who work in the law. (For an example of the latter, in my non-lawyer eyes see the NLRB Advice Memo that Ken White blogged about at Popehat back on the 23rd.) It is creeping in and is likely to continue to creep in.

        You have at least a limited platform for speaking to how this stuff interacts with the law. If you believe this stuff is wrong/evil, it is appropriate to use that platform to voice your beliefs. Whether anyone who matters will listen is unknowable in advance.

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