2011年4月13日 星期三

How to respond to "This-is-not-my-ideology"

     I have recently noticed that when activity groups (be it feminists, gay activists and occasionally even masculists) are accused of creating inequalities or doing anything that is not desirable, their first reaction is to counterargue with the following argument, which I personally call "This-is-not-my-ideology" argument:

     "You have probably gotten it wrong. The [feminist/gay rights/...] ideology is not what you accused it to be, instead it is blah blah..."

     For example, I have seen a feminist arguing that feminism is not about women grabbing the goodies that men has and shrugging off the burdens that come with them, when someone accuse them of doing so. I have done some readings on feminist ideology and I admit at least part of it are not guilty. However, does what you idealize neccessarily translate into what you do?

     I think not.

     When translating thoughts into behaviors, a very complicated process is involved. An example includes a behavioral model of goal seeking:

http://www.itk.ilstu.edu/faculty/portegys/research/ci2005.pdf

     For an ideology to work as it expects, firstly the one promoting it MUST truly be motivated to seek the goals, and he or she must makes as less errors as possible during execution. One of the processes involved in goal seeking is the thinking process, which has proven to be subject to A HELL LOT of errors (e.g. I am too lazy to do reference, but I am certain that you can find such evidence by typing "thinking" and "bias" in google scholar).
     Moreover, we all know that what a person says doesn't means that he or she is truly motivated to do the things he or she claims to be doing.
     However, the "This-is-not-my-ideology" Argument works ONLY IF what the person is doing is in agreement with his or her ideology, but we all know that this is NOT always true (and probably sadly, often false). Therefore, it would follows that the argument is not valid, and of course unsound.

Conclusion

     I have briefly analyzed an argument often used by activists (be it feminists, gay activists or any other activity groups) to counter when accused of doing something that is not desirable or acceptable. I believe this is quite a good response to it, by pointing out the fact that it is completely absurd. Anyone have figure out some other ways to deal with this argument?

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