(Part 2) Top products from r/TiADiscussion

OP, buy the following book, and get wise on the specifics of the arguments presented. We all have a good idea why SJW Fundamentalism is bad, but knowing how to present those arguments in a clear, cogent way should go a long way to persuading your peers.

http://www.amazon.com/Kindly-Inquisitors-Attacks-Free-Thought/dp/0226705765

Good luck, and godspeed.

A few years back, I read Norah Vincent's Self-Made Man, and found it an interesting read.

(I will admit it also simply felt good to read someone acknowledging the difficulties that men face in daily life.)

I was genuinely surprised later on to find out how anti-trans-anybody Vincent turns out to be. I would have thought her experiences would have opened her up to the understanding of how important identity is to people, but some of the things she has apparently said come across as downright scornful of the trans community.

I'm at a loss for understanding where this hateful impetus comes from, and was wondering if you had any comments of your own to add, recommended reading, or the like.

If you don't, that's ok. I've been enjoying your answers to the other questions in this thread. Thanks for taking the time to do so!

And this study published last year in PNAS concluded that "human brains cannot be categorized into two distinct classes: male brain/female brain."

I'm not saying that the PNAS study (or any other study -- including the ones you cited) is 100% of reliable or methodologically perfect. I'm not a neuroscientist; I don't know enough about the subject to critically examine the methodology or results of any of these studies. But enough bad science has been done in this field that a psychologist wrote a whole book about it.

Nevertheless, thanks for the links. It's always interesting to read about the science behind trans issues.

I think you would really enjoy this

I was going to ask a pretty similar question re: just how well these ideas apply to an African context. (Basically I think they're lacking in nuance).

On the Irish front, I suspect that /u/jazzarchist will bring up the idea that the Irish weren't always considered "white"

I've had to navigate similar situations in my own life -- if you care about these people, but they're making you miserable, you need to find a way to keep them in your life while ensuring your own happiness and wellbeing. I have a few recommendations that helped me. One note: I don't call them SJWs, I call them hostile extremists. There's a TLDR at the end.

1. Read Kristin Neff's book on self-compassion.
   It might sound like a silly new age concept, but there's a ton of scientific research that shows that there are tangible health benefits to practicing self-compassion. It's different from self-esteem -- it's not about believing that you're awesome, but about recognizing that you're human and that it's okay to be imperfect. Hostile extremists have trouble with compassion. If you intend on keeping them in your life, you will want to cultivate self-compassion so that their emotional abuse bounces right off of you. We're human. We want to be accepted by the people in our lives (and by society at large). Extremists use that against us by employing humiliation, shame, and harassment in order to control our behaviour. They want power over us. Self-compassion helps inoculate us against emotional coercion. When you accept yourself 100%, you don't respond as strongly to shame and humiliation.
   
   
2. Practice metta meditation, also known as loving-kindness meditation. If you intend on keeping these people in your life, you will need to learn how to enjoy their company despite the fact that they can sometimes be raging jackasses. There are people in my life that I love in spite of how awful they often are. Metta helps. It's like lifting weights at the gym -- except instead of building muscles, you're strengthening neural patterns in your brain that turn off your body's fight-or-flight response in the face of threatening situations. After three months of metta meditation, instead of feeling depressed when someone craps all over you, you'll be much more likely to brush it off and get on with the business of living. You'll see the person behind the hate, and it'll soften your response to their hostility and contempt. There's a lot of research that's been done on the benefits of metta meditation. Studies show that metta meditation improves vagal tone, which is, among other things, the bodies "grace under fire" mechanism. Once again, this might seem silly and you'll probably feel like a dork when you first start doing it, but it works. It takes time, though -- you're rewiring your brain's response to stress. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen.
   
   
3. You need to fix your flatmate situation. Either move out, or fix your relationship so that she's no longer creating a hostile environment.
   
   You deserve to live in a healthy environment surrounded by people who respect you, NO MATTER WHAT. If you care about these people, it's fine to want to keep them in your life, but do NOT live with someone who disrespects you. The only reason you should live with people who yell at you/belittle you/look down on you is because you're training to be a buddhist monk/stoic who has perfect emotional control. Not willing to move out? Read John Gottman's book "The Science of Trust". Gottman has spent the last thirty years studying human relationships. He's an expert on why marriages fail (and why they succeed). What's true for marriage is (mostly) true for other kinds of relationships. His book is about marriage, but you can apply some of his advice to your flatmates. If you can't establish a healthy relationship with them based on mutual respect, get out. Don't give hostile people control over your wellbeing -- when you're living with them, it's impossible not to. You should consider living somewhere that will prioritize your emotional wellbeing.
   
   
4. Establish firm boundaries and enforce them ruthlessly.
   
   Find out what you're willing to put up with -- and then shut down anything you're not willing to deal with.
   
   
   TLDR:
   
   1 - Cultivate self-compassion
   
   2 - By practicing metta meditation
   
   3 - Read John Gottman's The Science of Trust, apply his advice to your relationship with your flatmate. If you can't establish a relationship based on mutual respect, move out or kick them out. Do not live in a toxic environment.
   
   4 - Establish boundaries and enforce them ruthlessly.
   

I'm obviously not as into the literature on the psychology of cult-like groups as you, but I am way into the academia side of their arguments (ie, the communicative strategies of the authors they often parrot and whose concepts they systematically rend of nuance).

Anywho, this book is awesome on the creation of what Anderson calls "unlocatable norms" of communication among like-minded groups who emphasize their identity as constituting their belonging. She combines this with an analysis of how appeals to identity and group belonging create the potential for abandonment of a culture of justification; emphasizing the truth of lived experiences over intersubjective concensus and testing others' truth claims, etc.

10/10 book, will recommend wherever it's relevant to the discussion. It's also incredibly lucid, well-written, and features a number of "oh no she didn't" moments where a WWE-quality smackdown is laid in full academic candor.

I agree with everything you've just said.

You might be interested in Fashionable Nonsense.

Edit. Apart from one thing.

> Not just scientists...

I made no comment on the groups of people who were not scientists. When talking about scientists using exact language you may have felt I was commenting on groups that where not scientists but I was not. ;)

Rapists often are drunk as fuck, what the fuck are you talking about, man, WHAT DOES ANYTHING HAVE TO DO WITH VIETNAM?!

I just don't get your social science (or Tumblr Cliffs Notes) outlook, some men have wildly overdeveloped sado-masochistic urges, which supports the "power" argument, but are you male? Men can view getting-off as a trivial thing, although the dignity of a human female is hugely contingent on her ability to choose her own mates, and it's nothing to trivialize.

I suggest everyone here just get into evolutionary psychology:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Moral-Animal-Evolutionary-Psychology/dp/0679763996

Understanding that they are saying something out of pain is one thing, being expected to shut up and apologize for something I didn't do, while simultaneously being berated...is something else all together. So tell me, when did you read Guns, Germs, and Steel? I'm sure you have, given the sanctimonious way with which you preach your superior understanding of history and the development of modern societies.

Also, the notion that someone is likely prejudiced for not "understanding history" or "understanding privilege" is a non sequitur; you are essentially saying anyone who doesn't agree with you is likely a racist, and that's absurd.

You know who keeps contributing to the problem of racism? People who see everything in terms of race; you know...racists. People who inject race into situations where it would otherwise be absent, or people who justify bigotry against a specific subset of people, because those people are somehow less deserving of basic human decency, kindness, and empathy.

It is not the kind-hearted but impoverished white man, nor is it the kind-hearted but impoverished black man who perpetuate racial tensions. No, it is the man who acts as the self-appointed champion, the man who would claim to speak for those who are fully capable of speaking for themselves; It is the man who would burn our bridges rather than help build them, the man who prefers the ease of antagonization over the difficulty of ingratiation. It is these men who stoke the fires of racial animosity, it is these men who are truly racist.

It's really common in academic feminism. If you want to be totally fucking appalled, check out Words of Power: A Feminist Reading Of The History Of Logic by Andrea Nye.
link

Well, there was the fact that he said that he was worried about a Federal judge being biased because he was Mexican. You know, the one I mentioned upthread? The one from fucking INDIANA? Calling a judge biased based on his apparent race is... racist! My source is... Donald Trump, who said that shit himself on camera.

Also, upthread, was mention of the Department of Justice going after the property management company that Trump ran twice for racist practices related to black applicants. Discriminating against people based on race in terms of whether or not you will rent to them is... racist! If you need a source on that, there's google.

The, the book written by the former president of his casino. Trumped!: The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump-His Cunning Rise and Spectacular Fall. I wish I had an affiliate link. The statement was "Besides that, I've got to tell you something else. I think that the guy is lazy. And it's probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It's not anything they can control.... Don't you agree?" Do I really have to point out what this is an example of?

So yeah, the guys is what we in the field like to call "really fucking racist", probably just shy of "don't mention blacks around Uncle Ted even if he's sober"-racist. These facts weren't hidden away or never mentioned. I didn't really go hunting for them or engage in anything a junior high English teacher would call research. It's all fairly common knowledge.

Tell me, is any of this really a surprise to you?

Edit: And you edited a bunch of crap into your post. Whatever.