• jorndoe
    3.6k
    Some older person walks into a place known to be a homosexual hangout and slams a newspaper onto a table. "My kid died from a gender operation!" People stare, taken aback. "You hide your ways now, or there'll be consequences!" The person looks around angrily, showing a firearm holster, and leaves, slamming the door behind them.

    It's a made-up story, though I'm sure something along those lines has happened or otherwise is realistic; please read with charity.

    While a tragedy, what should we expect among millions of people? The angry person supposedly provides evidence that such people have a negative impact on society, yet just points at one case pertaining to one individual here.

    Someone else might nod, "one case is one case too many", and, in some other way, you don't really want to deny there was a tragedy.

    Another story. There's plenty anti-EU sentiment to go around. Brexit is an example. There are some rules for acceptance, by and large commonsensical — democracy, stable enough economy, human rights, transparency — aspirational I guess, stuff you'd want. The EU is also intended as a larger, cooperative forum, including trade, markets, whatever. At the round-table, anti-EU'ers bring evidence.

    Slovakia: Hate crime against refugees and migrants widespread but unreported
    — Martina Sekulova · European Website on Integration · Feb, 19 2022
    A corruption scandal leaves the EU reeling
    — The Economist · Dec 15, 2022

    More against the aspirations can be found of course. And you don't want to just wave those away.

    Yet, as with the other example, something's amiss, maybe to do with scale/scope. Doesn't cancel the aspirations either — where people want to take things. For example, things realistically likely to happen can easily be appropriated as evidence. Though, against a larger backdrop, single point evidence can shift (relevance/importance/weight/...), after all, "evidence" isn't a magic word. In general, evidence isn't proof, though, in some cases, it can be (e.g. a counter-example to a universal proposition).

    Anyway, this post isn't an exercise in formal logic, it's vague, yet looking for comments/insights, because something of this nature has been posted on the forum and elsewhere. Maybe I'm trying to express something that someone else knows everything about.
  • Benj96
    2.3k


    I believe what you are describing is something known as "cognitive bias".

    Satistically, there are lifestyles, sets of conditions or a particular sequence of events that occur in which a person can determine "personal truths" based on "personal experience" and the experience of their immediate associates (which also experience the same or similar life circumstances that lead to similar or the same natural conclusions).

    This bias is innate to subjectivity.

    A young, white, western (typically capitalist and democratic) male with say christian societal background is cognitively biased in a very different way to an elderly African woman, with Islamic faith, and a strong communal driven ubringing.

    Both of them have individual and unique understandings of reality. Often at times in contradiction to one another's values perhaps. And at others, in alignment.

    So what "truth" is universal and objective in a world full of subjects (biased towards unique individual perceptions of the world)?

    The ideal objective truth seeker, is someone who can experience all experiences, from the point of view of all "experiencers" and establish truth based on non-contradiction between such views.
    Of course that is not humanly possible.

    So the best tools we have to find fundamental facts and truths that apply to all people, everywhere, regardless of their subjective bias, is through rigorous well balanced logic and reasoning (science), as well as introspection, empathy and intuition (ethics, philosophy etc). We cannot walk in one another's shoes, thus empathy allos us to at least psychological imagine what it is like to walk in them.
  • Benj96
    2.3k
    As for the man who's kid died in a sexual reassignment surgery.

    Perhaps one ought to ask him alternative prompts for consideration such as, do all surgeries not pose some degree of risk to ones health and life? Is transgenderism the same as homosexuality? (ie are homosexuals directly accountable for transgender issues - not being trans themselves). Were any of these gay patrons at the bar directly aware of the existence of his son, had any of them directly influenced the child's decision? And finally, is it possible that had the surgery gone successfully, the child would have been truly happy or felt who they truly were meant to be?

    Of course asking such questions when one is in an intense state of anger and grief, fuelled on an emotional level, might not be likely to be absorbed or considered in that moment.

    So it is indeed a delicate situation.
    (not to mention the fact that children usually require permission by both psychologists, psychiatrists, surgeons and parents alike to make such a decision to sexually reassign.

    So in any case it is likely the direct responsibility of any one group or individual? Or instead the collective of many.

    It is terribly upsetting indeed, but applying blame to some specific target person or group (a scapegoat) not to mention threatening violence, is hardly going to be the rational nor ethical approach. And only escalates to further spreading the devastation, anger and possibly hatred to more families and innocent parties.

    The man I would say needs intense level of support - therapy, grief councelling, thorough re-education of the situation to steer him away from doing something he may regret based on personal bias/perceptions or prejudice.
  • jorndoe
    3.6k
    , thanks for the comments.
    Cognitive biases can easily be part thereof.
    The argumentative aspect (and recognizing it) was more my aim here.
  • Tom Storm
    9.1k
    While a tragedy, what should we expect among millions of people? The angry person supposedly provides evidence that such people have a negative impact on society, yet just points at one case pertaining to one individual here.jorndoe

    Yes, it's done all the time. It's a hasty generalization fallacy, where an unwarranted inference is made from a statement about a sample to a statement about the population from which it is drawn. E.g., 'I met a couple of beggars who were frauds - therefore all beggars are fraudulent and we need to arrest them all.'
  • jorndoe
    3.6k
    An example of sorts over in this parallel post: Tiananmen 1989
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