Categories require boundaries when they meet reality, regardless of what postmodernists might want to argue.
Are wolves “dogs”? Given the (actual) spectrum of hybrids, it’s the same pseudophilosophical navel-gazing as debating whether hotdogs are a form of sandwich, but the former distinction matters in the real world:
If facing a pack of (mostly) wolves, calling out that you’re surrounded by (philosophical) “dogs” wouldn’t do nearly as much for your imminent safety; the word wolf has social meaning (danger!) that dog simply does not (necessarily).
And sex?
#SexMatters as much or more than any other characteristic of our humanity. Not as a cage for either sex, but as a reality which intersects with vast swaths of law, policy, and societal structure.
“The challenge, then, is not to abandon openness but to recover its structure. That requires a willingness to state, without evasion, what an institution believes, what it does not believe, and what it is prepared to defend even under pressure to harmonize. It requires distinguishing between coexistence and equivalence, between dialogue and dissolution. These are not semantic niceties. They are the conditions under which an institution retains its identity while remaining capable of engaging others.” This is so beautifully stated.
I will go one step further though. The willingness to state what an institution believes in, what it does not believe in, and what it is willing to defend even under pressure to harmonize, requires the people running the institutions to engage morally and not politically. As someone who was raised Catholic, it is hard not to look at the Institution of the Catholic Church without acknowledging that political expediency has historically clouded institutional moral clarity, far more times than most would care to admit.
And as for the false “right/left” framing of the fight for sex based rights/reality, as well as the practice of unnecessary and harmful medicalization of children/young people being fabricated as “inclusivity”, both are a sham. “Openness” won’t ever be achieved by obscuring what an institution purposefully chooses to no longer protect.
The removal of Chesterton's fence is not an act of kindness , no matter how well intended. "Good fences make good neighbors"
This resonates brilliantly for me. I'm going to read it several times.
Categories require boundaries when they meet reality, regardless of what postmodernists might want to argue.
Are wolves “dogs”? Given the (actual) spectrum of hybrids, it’s the same pseudophilosophical navel-gazing as debating whether hotdogs are a form of sandwich, but the former distinction matters in the real world:
If facing a pack of (mostly) wolves, calling out that you’re surrounded by (philosophical) “dogs” wouldn’t do nearly as much for your imminent safety; the word wolf has social meaning (danger!) that dog simply does not (necessarily).
And sex?
#SexMatters as much or more than any other characteristic of our humanity. Not as a cage for either sex, but as a reality which intersects with vast swaths of law, policy, and societal structure.
“The challenge, then, is not to abandon openness but to recover its structure. That requires a willingness to state, without evasion, what an institution believes, what it does not believe, and what it is prepared to defend even under pressure to harmonize. It requires distinguishing between coexistence and equivalence, between dialogue and dissolution. These are not semantic niceties. They are the conditions under which an institution retains its identity while remaining capable of engaging others.” This is so beautifully stated.
I will go one step further though. The willingness to state what an institution believes in, what it does not believe in, and what it is willing to defend even under pressure to harmonize, requires the people running the institutions to engage morally and not politically. As someone who was raised Catholic, it is hard not to look at the Institution of the Catholic Church without acknowledging that political expediency has historically clouded institutional moral clarity, far more times than most would care to admit.
And as for the false “right/left” framing of the fight for sex based rights/reality, as well as the practice of unnecessary and harmful medicalization of children/young people being fabricated as “inclusivity”, both are a sham. “Openness” won’t ever be achieved by obscuring what an institution purposefully chooses to no longer protect.