• ToastedPlanet
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    1 year ago

    The actions of a minority of individuals in a movement do not define what the larger movement is. A movement is also not defined by the people who seek to misrepresent the movement to others. The actions of the majority of the people in the movement are what defines it. Arguments directed at individuals, especially those individuals that do not represent the larger movement, neither change what the movement is nor are they compelling.

    I personally recommend the hierarchy of disagreement. Arguments that focus on the refutation of arguments will be more compelling than those directed at the people giving the arguments.

    https://themindcollection.com/revisiting-grahams-hierarchy-of-disagreement/

    • Dark_Blade@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      In that case, maybe you should’ve replied to the post itself to argue that ‘men who hate women’ can’t possibly define the movement, rather than this long defense of feminism and how only the majority of the movement can define it (which isn’t entirely true either)

      • ToastedPlanet
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        1 year ago

        maybe you should’ve replied to the post itself to argue that ‘men who hate women’ can’t possibly define the movement

        I’ve been doing that. Your comments specifically seemed a good place to start.

        Individual people can certainly try to define a movement, but the voices of the majority of people in the movement are going to best represent what the movement actually is. Most sizable movements inevitably have some bad actors that do not represent the majority of people in the movement. If we judged every movement by its worst individuals we would never have any kind of social change at all. edit: spacing

        • Dark_Blade@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’ve been doing that. Your comments specifically seemed a good place to start.

          Maybe you should’ve started with the post itself, because all you’ve done so far is confuse me about how your point related to my point other than some mildly related tangent.

          Individual people can certainly try to define a movement, but the voices of the majority of people in the movement are going to best represent what the movement actually is. Most sizable movements inevitably have some bad actors that do not represent the majority of people in the movement. If we judged every movement by its worst individuals we would never have any kind of social change at all. edit: spacing

          …well that’s a completely separate conversation and has nothing to do with men from outside the movement apparently being able to define feminism more than actual feminists.

          • ToastedPlanet
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            1 year ago

            We’ll have to agree to disagree about what I’ve been saying, I guess. I have been addressing your point that a minority of bad actors in the feminist movement define the movement. This is the same argument used by the referred to “men who hate woman” in the meme. My argument is that a minority of a feminists do not define the movement as a whole. And to a large extent the image of the movement is irrelevant to what the movement is as anyone can create a false perception by discounting reality to suit their own beliefs. This has been my point the entire time. I have simple generalized what I’m saying as it is true of movements more broadly than just feminism. The flaw I’m addressing in the argument is that it is aimed at individual feminists and not what feminism’s core tenant is, that women are equal to men, and deserve to be treated as such in society.