gaara4158
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- Aug 18, 2007
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Sure, and I won’t defend someone who won’t define their own position. As others have said, the Dr. Phil interview is not indicative of the general attitudes of transgender people. I don’t find it useful to focus on outliers like this, so if that’s all you wish to discuss I’ll just bow out. The information I find important has been conveyed.I don't think the definition has to be perfect...it can be partially subjective if that's how people want to look at it, but there has to be some definition or some standard for even subjectivity to make sense.
For instance, one person can say "this bread tastes too sweet", another can say "this bread isn't sweet enough"
Neither are "right" or "wrong", but there at least has to be a commonality in terms of what "sweet" is meant to convey in order for the conversation to have any meaning or context.
If one person is saying it, using the commonly long-held definition of "taste characteristic of sugar or honey", and the other has repurposed the term (for them) to mean "resembling the taste of garlic"...or even less productive "I can't define it" or "It's whatever I decide it means today, could change tomorrow", then a debate about the flavor of the bread is meaningless.
My critique wasn't that they were using a "imperfect definition", it's that they were unwilling to provide any definition at all.
Walsh was able to provide a quick & ready definition, which was "An adult human female" People can agree or disagree with his standard on that, but at least you know what you're debating against. How do you debate against a person making an assertion, and isn't even willing to make an attempt to define what standard they're basing it on?
If you and I were having an economic debate, and I said "I think social spending is too high" and you asked the reasonable follow-up question "what are you defining as social spending and what limits are you setting to designate 'too high'?", and I said "I can't define it", that economic exchange isn't going to get very far.
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