Opinion of Memphis

[Linus Van Pelt]

If you're so into "willingness to use Google", you could have perhaps googled "Wittgenstein law of identity" and found that the third hit is the entry for "law of identity" in the Historical Dictionary of Wittgenstein's Philosophy, which begins:
 

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and the fifth hit is an abstract at Oxford Scholarship Online for a paper called "Wittgenstein on Identity", which states:

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So actually the combination "strict A=A Wittgensteinian" displays a fairly blatant historical misunderstanding, and it's pretty clear that you don't fully understand the phrase "strict 'A=A' rationalist Wittgensteinian episteme".

Independently of all this, it's a pretty minimal consideration for respectful and inclusive language is that you try to use words understood not only by the speaker but also by the listener.

[Linus Van Pelt]

In all seriousness Nathan I apologize for my sharp sarcastic tone; I try to avoid that sort of thing, and I really don't want anyone to feel bad.

Taking a step back though, I do want to make a point about the earlier issue, which is that I wish everyone on all sides would be clearer about distinguishing the issue of sexual harassment from other theoretical questions about the nature of gender. It actually doesn't take any complex theorizing at all to see that something can be a desirable and healthy part of life but still inappropriate in some contexts . It's not "anti-eating" to point out that in some professional contexts it's inappropriate to randomly start chowing down on a pizza. It's not "anti-sleep" to point out that it's often very disrespectful to fall asleep in front of someone. And the same applies to making a sexual pass at someone. This whole flare-up actually started not with a discussion of the transgendered at all, but with a poster reporting that he had been sent some directly sexual messages when he was thought to be female. Pretty much everyone there of different political views and generations, including Duke and Gramps, recognized in that thread that this was kind of creepy, because they understood that in a world in which some men do not respect women's consent at all and in which there is a long history of women being considered unfit for serious intelligent work, it might reasonably cause even a women who might be quite happy to be hit on by certain men in certain contexts to feel upset and threatened to be sent sexual propositions from behind a veil of internet anonymity when she had come to discuss political geography and not voluntarily entered the sort of bar, party, etc., where there might some expectation of loosened boundaries. And yet Memphis responded that "being hit on is not a problem" and the only reason that the discussion turned to the transgendered was that he appeared to think that the only reason one could possibly be offended by this attitude was an opposition to heterosexuality more generally. It doesn't actually depend on any theory of the nature of gender to recognize that this is an outrageous attitude.